Stranger Buys Dream Dress for Bride-to-Be

Liz Jensen went wedding dress shopping Friday, and once she put on a particular dress, "I knew it was the one," the Utah woman says. "It had everything I wanted. It was perfect." But, at $480, it was out of her price range—Jensen, a full-time student at Brigham Young University just back from her LDS Church mission, is the seventh of eight kids, and "my dad has been unemployed for a while," she tells Deseret News. "The cost of things add up." Little did she know that another bride-to-be was in the store that day, and though she didn't find a dress for herself, she approached the store owner with an incredible offer.

"She didn't have a particular bride in mind and she asked me, 'Which one of them could use the help?'" Carrie Ling recalls. The woman left enough money to cover the cost of any dress the store sold, and Ling told Jensen her dream dress was within reach after all. "Who pays for someone's wedding dress?" says a grateful Jensen, who started crying when told she could walk away with the dress for free. "It's something I'll never forget." The do-gooder wants to remain anonymous, but Jensen says she has an open invitation to her wedding on May 1. (More uplifting news stories.)