Pittsburgh woman searches for wedding dress lost when dry cleaner closed

A Squirrel Hill woman wants her wedding dress back.

Nicole Vera Delgado, a Louisiana native who moved to Pittsburgh five years ago, ignored the horror stories she’d heard about dry cleaners losing or mangling wedding dresses. Last August, she gave her strapless, A-line wedding dress, complete with beading and lace over satin, to Footer’s Cleaners in Squirrel Hill to be cleaned and preserved.

Delgado, a salesperson for a Motorola reseller, waited weeks to hear the job was done. Then months. She called the Forbes Avenue business every so often, just to check in.

Nothing.

“‘We promise we’ll call you,’” she said the cleaners told her in December.

“I felt bad, like I was bothering them,” said Delgado, 43. “I thought it was important I didn’t sound angry or upset. I didn’t want them to worry about calling me back.”

On Thursday, Delgado found the receipt for her dress and called again — only to find Footer’s Cleaners unexpectedly closed months earlier. The dress, she discovered, had been donated to Goodwill.

On Friday, the search started.

Delgado and her husband scrambled to Goodwill stores in North Versailles, then Robinson, then Penn Hills.

Nothing.

“It just upset me so much. It was like, ‘Oh, my God, my dress is in one of these bins, and it’s in bad shape,’” Delgado said. “It was very emotional. I started crying. My poor husband’s there trying to comfort me.”

Delgado took to social media, sharing her story with Pittsburgh-focused Facebook groups. People started responding and sharing her posts. It gave her hope.

Some women even offered to give their wedding dresses to her, Delgado said.

“The interest this has drawn and the amount of people that have taken the time out of their day to check a local Goodwill or look online to help” is amazing, she said. “People can be incredibly kind.”

Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania learned about Delgado’s story through social media and is trying to help.

“We’ve notified all the stores in the area to keep an eye out for it,” said David Tobiczyk, vice president of marketing and development. “We really hope she can find her dress.”

Somewhat frequently, Goodwill finds “items have been donated to us unintentionally,” even wedding dresses, Tobiczyk said.

“We do our best to see if we can find them and return them,” he said.

Delgado also started to play the role of sleuth.

She called every cleaner and wedding dress preserver in the region, trying to reach the family that owned Footer’s Cleaners.

The Better Business Bureau listed Yang Jae Chun on its website Tuesday as the owner of the now-closed Footer’s Cleaners, which opened in Squirrel Hill in January 1979.

Delgado was unable to reach him. The Tribune-Review also could not reach him.

Delgado heard a relative of the Footer’s Cleaners owner ran Lord Duncan Cleaners, another Squirrel Hill dry cleaning business that closed this year. The Better Business Bureau listed Jun Chun online Tuesday as that company’s owner.

Delgado and the Trib were unable to reach him.

The building at 5864 Forbes Ave., where Footer’s Cleaners was based, was owned by Jun Yong Chun and Sumi Chun since at least 2013, county real estate records show.

The Chun family sold it Feb. 27 to JC Investment Squirrel Hill Property LLC for $1.15 million, county real estate records show. The new owner listed their contact information as a residence in Erie. They also could not be reached this week.

Sumi Chun was born in Seoul in 1963 and moved to Pittsburgh in 1989 with her husband, who opened a dry cleaning business in Squirrel Hill, according to an April 26, 2012, article in the Tribune-Review. The article said Sumi Chun owns Sumi’s Cakery, a Korean-style bakery on Squirrel Hill’s Murray Avenue.

Delgado went to the bakery but hasn’t heard from Sumi Chun yet. She also hasn’t called back the Trib.

Delgado fondly remembered living in Mississippi in 2014 when she bought the Casablanca Bridal dress — style number 2072: “Enchanted Evening” — from The Bridal Path, a boutique in Jackson, Miss.

“It kind of felt like a chore I needed to check off the list. I was excited to get the dress, but it was just something that needed to be done,” Delgado said. “When I got there, I immediately thought I was going to find what I was looking for.”

Audrey McCarty, who bought The Bridal Path shortly after Delgado shopped there, told the Trib this week that customer records dating before 2016 are no longer available.

The Bridal Path doesn’t sell Casablanca Bridal dresses anymore, though McCarty said Casablanca Bridal’s factory always was good at customizing a look. Maybe they could recreate the dress.

“If you could draw it or write it out on paper, they could make it for you,” McCarty said.

Delgado was married Dec. 13, 2014 — a date whose playfulness becomes clear when written 12/13/14 — in New Orleans.

A key part of that storyline and that life event is missing.

“We’re still kind of going down the rabbit hole,” Delgado said. “We’re having everyone look out for it because it could be anywhere.”

“It’s not like I was going to wear the wedding dress next week,” she added. “But it was a sentimental piece. Losing it has been really tough.”