A persistent husband brought his wife to tears when he tracked down her wedding dress, which she thought had been lost forever and surprised her with it on her birthday.
Tyler and Bethany Morehart married in their hometown of Huron, Ohio, on January 8, 2011, and 10 days after their wedding, Tyler headed off to boot camp with the United States Coast Guard.
Bethany’s parents, Angie and Jeff, took possession of their daughter’s dress. They preserved it and proudly displayed it in the window of their dry-cleaning business to showcase their services.
After Tyler, 36, had graduated, he and Bethany moved to nearby Cleveland before being stationed in Puerto Rico. At this point, Bethany’s parents sold their dry-cleaning business.
MORE GOOD NEWS: Bride Surprises 100-Year-Old Great-Grandmother With Wedding Dress After She Couldn’t Attend Wedding
Tyler and Bethany then moved to Pittsburgh for four years, during which time Bethany’s parents moved two more times, too.
During those years, Bethany admitted that keeping track of the wedding dress was not a priority for everyone.
But over time, having returned to Ohio with three kids and Tyler starting his own dental business, Bethany, 36, began to wonder where her beloved dress might be.
That was in 2021, and over the years that followed, Bethany grew to accept that her dress—which she hoped her daughter would one day wear to her wedding—was lost forever.
But Tyler had taken note, and his first efforts were to gather the numbers of the two people who had owned the dry cleaners since his in-laws.
Those two people could not find the dress or any old box in the store, so Tyler secretly turned back to Angie and Jeff.
After weeks of searching—and initially without any luck—the couple eventually found the dress in the attic of an old Victorian home they own and rent. They immediately called Tyler with the good news.
Earlier in the summer, a dejected Tyler told his wife that his search had failed. This provided Bethany with closure and meant she did not expect what was about to happen.
MORE GOOD NEWS: Daughter Surprises Mom With Repurposed 90s Wedding Dress at Rehearsal Dinner
On October 21, Tyler encouraged his wife to open a large, wrapped box he had placed in their home in Perrysburg, Ohio, for her birthday.
When Bethany ripped the paper and saw the box, she immediately knew what her husband had found.
The loving gesture – and the thought of how hard Tyler had tried – immediately brought Bethany to tears of joy.
The moment was captured on video, which Bethany later shared on her TikTok channel.
She said: “I walked downstairs to the house being decorated and a table stacked with presents our kids had picked out for me.
“At the base of it was a huge box.
MORE GOOD NEWS: Bride Emotionally Surprised With Painting of Herself in Wedding Dress With Late Father
“I had no idea what it could be, but the second I tore the paper and saw the gold stripe, I knew exactly what was inside.
“I had, after all, grown up seeing all these beautiful dresses preserved in those exact boxes at my parents’ cleaners.
“You can see in the video the second I see the stripe and register what I am about to unveil.
“I genuinely never imagined I’d ever see it again and had accepted that, so flipping that switch in my brain from never again to holding it in my hands was such a shock.
“I instantly started crying.
“In that moment, I realized just how much having that piece of our history meant to me.”