LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
For many brides, the most important part of their most important day is getting just the right dress. So imagine, after spending all that time and money, the company you ordered your wedding dress from unexpectedly goes bankrupt. That's what happened to Nia (ph). She bought her dress from an Alfred Angelo bridal store in California. And everything was going fine until Friday morning.
NIA: I'm getting all these Facebook messages and text messages from people, like, Nia, is your dress OK? Did you hear about Alfred Angelo? And now my coworkers are telling me. And I'm freaking out. And I packed up my stuff and left. And so I drove to the store. And I get there. The store's all boarded up. There's police officers all around the place. And I'm thinking to myself, like, what's going on here? You know, nobody called me. What's going on with my dress?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Alfred Angelo, which had at least 60 locations across the country, filed to liquidate all of its assets and suddenly closed all of its storefronts last week. Nia tried looking through the store window to find someone who could help her.
NIA: And I can see people walking around. And they're, like, packing up the merchandise that's in the store. And I said, hey, hey, anybody in there? Yeah, you. You can hear me. I can see you in there. Can you please come talk to me? I'm getting married in 15 days. Where's my dress?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Near was finally able to track down her dress. But Amber McGraw (ph) was not so lucky.
AMBER MCGRAW: I'm mad at the company for making me pay for a dress that I'll never get. And I'm mad that I'm two months out from my wedding, and I have no wedding dress. I paid in total almost $1,000 for a dress that I'll never get.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: On their website, Alfred Angelo said they filed for bankruptcy. They wrote, we apologize for the inconvenience and hardship resulting from this event. Some people are trying to help the brides get their happily ever after. People have been using Facebook and Twitter to offer up their own wedding dresses to the women who were left at the altar by Alfred Angelo. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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