After a distressed bride-to-be called 911 and reported her wedding dress had been stolen on the day of her wedding, five-year veteran dispatcher Candice, from Tacoma, Wash., decided to help her out in a huge way by lending her her own wedding dress, the Washington News Tribune reports.
The Kent, Wash. bride was packing her car on Sunday morning in preparation for her wedding that evening when she discovered that her dress was missing from the vehicle. She called 911 to report the theft, and was dispatched to Candice, who answers 911 calls in South King County communities and works for Valley Communications.
"When she said [her wedding was] 'today,' my heart broke in two for her," Candice said to the newspaper.
After calming the woman down and getting her story, Candice had an idea. She turned to her supervisor and asked, "Can I offer her my dress? All through the call I was thinking, 'I have a dress...'"
Eighteen months ago, Candice married her husband Brandon, and though the tall and lean dispatcher had no idea whether or not her dress would fit the caller, she decided to take a chance.
"I understood completely," Candice said to the News Tribune. "This was such a special day for her, something she'd thought of her whole life. I talked to the officer responding and told him to tell her I'd offer her my dress."
The woman asked to see a picture of it, so Candice texted a photo of her wearing the dress to the police officer who was responding at the scene, who then showed it to the bride-to-be. It was then that Candice sent her parents, Calvin and Patty Luce, a shocking text message.
"It said 'Emergency! Call me.' and gave her number at the 911 center," Calvin Luce said to the News Tribune. "We'd never called her there before. She can't even take a cell phone into the center. My first thought was that my father had died. We called and the first thing Candice said was 'everything is alright. Where's my wedding dress?'"
As luck would have it, both the caller and Candice wore the same dress size. Candice and Brandon quickly retrieved it from her parent's house after a chain of events in which relatives helped them obtain a key to her parent's house.
On Monday morning, Candice received a text from the bride and groom, who thanked her and told her that the wedding had went off without a hitch.
For professional and safety reasons, Candice asked that her full name not be released to the media, as she didn't want the attention from her act of kindness.
"Candice is an extraordinary person," Candice's Valley Com operations manager, Vonnie Mayer, told the News Tribune. "She had something someone else needed, and she made it happen."
Her proud father, who had contacted the News Tribune, even shared a photo of Candice trying on the special wedding dress that found a second bride to wear it.
"She has always been very generous, always thinking of other people," Calvin Luce said. "It's not a surprise she'd do this, or believe that God put all the pieces together."
Candice agrees with her father that what happened was likely an act of God.
"If I hadn't taken that call, I wouldn't have heard about it," Candice said. "If she wasn't my size, it wouldn't have worked. If my husband had gone camping instead of staying home, I couldn't have gotten to the dress. God does awesome things, and this woman, whose wedding day might have been ruined, had her special day, after all."
Click here to see a photo of Candice, the 911 dispatcher who has chosen for her last name to remain private, wearing the wedding dress she lent to the bride-to-be.
