Canberra Bride’s Special Mission: Find Her $150 Dressmaker
Canberra bride Paris McMahon is trying to find the person who made her wedding dress after discovering it for $150 in a Tumut op shop. She wore the gown at her Canberra ceremony and hopes a video she posted on Instagram will help identify its maker.
Paris McMahon, a Canberra bride, is searching for the maker of her wedding dress after finding the gown for $150 at an op shop in Tumut, New South Wales. She wants to thank whoever made or donated it.
The 28-year-old found the dress while visiting Tumut with her now-husband, Jack Livingstone, and her friend Sammy to look at wedding venues. At the back of the store, she spotted seven bridal gowns on a small rack. The one she chose was last.
“Me and my friend went into the change room and put it on, and it fit me like a glove,” McMahon said. She described the moment as “a princess moment where no alterations were needed.”
A gown unlike the one she expected
McMahon had thought she would choose a modern, off-the-shoulder dress. She had tried on that style at boutiques, but said those gowns were expensive and did not make her feel as special as the Tumut find.
“I never thought I was going to want a romantic, princess dress,” she said. The gown’s color, she added, was “more a pearl than a white.”
The dress had no tags identifying its fabric or designer. McMahon’s dry cleaners thought it was likely handmade, based on its imperfect seams, and appeared vintage, probably from before the 2000s.
She paired it with a neck scarf draped over her back and Jo Mercer mesh spotted flats. The shoes cost $180, more than the dress.
Searching for the maker
McMahon and Livingstone held their ceremony last month at Yarralumla English Garden in Canberra. Their reception took place in the recently renovated backyard of McMahon’s parents.
The wedding cost $13,200, including the couple’s rings. McMahon said they knew the DJ, and the celebrant was the cousin of a close friend.
Now, McMahon has posted a short video of herself wearing the dress on Instagram in the hope that someone will recognize it or know who made it.
“I just want to thank them,” she said. “Them giving up that dress, or if they'd made it and donated it, whatever it was, it literally made my day.”
