Recently, St. Gemma’s Hospice Charity Shop in England received an anonymous donation of a stunning ivory lace peplum dress.
The Leeds shop was accepting vintage clothing donations to help raise money for its hospice for cancer patients, but the dress, complete with a netted skirt and floral details, was something special.
The dress's intricate stitching led the shop to believe it was custom-fit for its bride. After the shop posted a picture of the dress that got a ton of attention, it posted a status trying to find the man who had donated it.
But the gorgeousness of the dress wasn't the only thing that made the charity's appeal go viral. It was the devastating note attached to it.
The note read: "I wish any lady who takes this dress to have a life with her loved one, 56 years like I did, happy years. I was a lucky man to marry a lady like mine."
"We posted it on our social media channels just to say 'isn't this lovely' and it went bananas!" St. Gemma's spokesperson Nicola Woodgate told BuzzFeed News.
"When it went into a media frenzy we really wanted to contact the donor to thank him and update him on the amazing response the dress had received," she added.
There was so much interest in the dress and the story, they decided to sell the dress on eBay, where it was up to £600 by late Thursday afternoon.
And thanks to the power of social media, the shop announced this morning that it was able to locate the man who donated the dress and wrote the touching note about his late wife.
"He is over the moon" about the auction, the shop wrote, but wishes to remain anonymous. "He is a big fan of St. Gemma’s Hospice and is overwhelmed with the international attention that his late wife’s dress is generating."
"He's 85 and is local to the charity shop and felt ready to part with the dress after all these years," Woodgate said.
Woodgate told BuzzFeed News the elderly man "was delighted to hear the dress is living on in his late wife's memory."
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H/T: Hello Giggles