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Long Island Bride-To-Be Pleas For Return Of Stolen Bridesmaid Dresses

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island bride-to-be is issuing a plea to have her stolen bridesmaids' dresses returned to her before her wedding Friday.

Mary Melendez spent the last year planning her wedding to Charles Wisell.

Everything was all ready to go until last week. The Garden City woman said when she was picking up the lavender Azazie dresses she forgot to close the trunk of her SUV and the garments flew out.

"I was like, 'Oh my god, the dresses are going to be all over the street,' but it wasn't that way when I went back into the parking lot," Melendez said.

Witnesses told her a man in a white van scooped them up and drove away, WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported.

"I was right in front of him," Melendez said. "He saw me. He saw the dresses falling out of the trunk of the car. I don't know why someone would just take them."

Melendez said she thought the man was just trying to help and would give back the dresses. So she waited in the parking lot for 3½ hours before realizing he wasn't coming back.

The couple says they only want the dresses back, not to press charges.

She spent six months searching the perfect dress for her four bridesmaids, including a maid-of-honor dress.

"We flew people back from Honduras, we flew people from Alabama to get fitted," Melendez told CBS2's Jessica Borg.

Wisell and Melendez were married in a civil ceremony in her native Honduras a few years ago. The flowers and color scheme for their big church wedding all revolve around the color of those dresses.

"It's just unbelievable that someone would actually pick something that has no value to anybody else and just drive off with them," Wisell said.

The dresses, along with the alterations, cost about $1,000, but the store owner will give her the money back if they are not returned.

Melendez is now frantically searching for new dresses, sizes 0 to 2. The manufacturer told the couple there's not enough time to send new dresses in the proper sizes.

If she doesn't get her original dresses back by Friday, the couple would at least like for the thief to donate them to someone who can use them.

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