*Tony Mounsey.
AN ENNIS business owner has been hailed a “knight in shining armour” after rescuing a bride’s botched wedding dress – just hours ahead of her dream ceremony at the Cliffs of Moher.
Canadian bride-to-be Abbigeel Eggert had always dreamed of tying the knot at the world-famous Cliffs of Moher and everything in her fairytale was going to plan when she touched down in Co Clare in September.
Abbigeel’s $2,000 gown was specially packaged for her flight to Ireland ahead of her marriage to fiancé Ben. However, upon arrival, Abbigeel discovered that the dress was badly stained due to being stored incorrectly by the Canadian bridal shop where she purchased her dress.
“I guess during transit [the bag] rubbed all this black dye all the way across the front of her dress,” described father-of-the-bride George McGowan.
With only 24 hours to save the day, the McGowan family rushed to KathCleans Launderette and Dry Cleaners in Ennistymon, where they were told that it would take a week to clean. However, instead of turning them away, KathCleans sent them to T&J Dry Cleaners in Ennis, stating, “If anyone can do it, they can.”
Racing against the clock, the family drove into Ennis where mother-of-the-bride Michelle asked the owner of the Cornmarket Street shop, Tony Mounsey, “I don’t know if you can do anything”, to which he replied, “We just have to”.
Instructed to return the morning of the wedding on September 17, the family endured a sleepless night when they considered everything from renting a dress, to asking their florist to create a bouquet large enough to hide the mark. But when 10am came, T&J Dry Cleaners revealed that the wedding would go ahead with the dress restored to its former glory while refusing payment and wishing them the best.
Michelle quickly FaceTimed her daughter to deliver the good news. “I just gave her a thumbs up, and she burst into tears”.
Not only did the dry cleaners remove the stain, but they also put a form inside the torso to keep the shape and stored it in what it originally should have been wrapped in, a proper bridal garment bag.
“You are a beautiful human being, our knight in shining armour,” Michelle recalls telling Tony.
The family never had the chance to thank T&J Dry Cleaners in their rush to return to Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, Canada.
Dad George tells The Clare Echo, “Really, this is his story. Everybody else got payment. He got nothing. “The community knows the work this business does, but I want your community to know the work they do behind the storefront that keeps people coming back. May their business be blessed with ongoing success”.
When approached by The Clare Echo, Tony said, “I was only delighted to help out. It’s what we do here.” He revealed that these last-minute wedding disasters are more common than you would think, saying, “If anyone’s in a panic or an emergency, we will help them out in every way we can”.
Abbigeel and Ben exchanged vows in a nearby cottage, took their photographs on the cliffs, and celebrated with their 20 guests in Doolin’s Homestead Cottage. “Because of what we’d been through, it really was such joy to see her up there in her dress,” Michelle told The Clare Echo.
Abbigeel’s connection to Ireland comes from her mother, who grew up in Belfast, and she and her three sisters would visit the West on family trips, where the wish of getting married on the Cliffs of Moher began.
When speaking about her wish to thank the dry cleaner’s owner, Michelle told The Clare Echo, “At Thanksgiving, we go around our dinner table and say something that we’re thankful for, and of course, he was my thing this year.” She said, “I cannot talk about it without crying, and I think that will always be the emotion I have. Every time I think about that man, I weep”.
“He’s what Ireland is all about,” she added.
