(NewsNation) — Many young girls dream of feeling like a princess on their wedding day, but sometimes that perfect dress is expensive.
Gwendolyn Stulgis decided to help women find their dream dresses without the hefty price tag.
Shared Dream Dresses was inspired by Stulgis’ generous donation of her wedding dress.
“It’s definitely just not something that I wanted to keep, I just felt like it needed to be used. And more than just one time when you spend so much money on something like that,” Stulgis explained. “I definitely didn’t want to put it in the closet, I didn’t want to put it in a box. So I just felt like I wanted to help another person.”
She posted on Facebook about her wedding dress giveaway and 72 people responded with interest and others messaged her about wedding dresses they wanted to give away, too. Her kind gesture sparked a chain reaction of women wanting to donate their dresses. Now, Shared Dream Dresses has more than 3,000 Facebook members.
All gowns are dry cleaned and donated, and passed from one beautiful bride to the next.
Stulgis said public interest sparked her idea to start a group where other women could help each other feel beautiful on their special day.
“It’s become real special for me. I went from having only five people who wanted to donate dresses after I donated mine, and now we have hundreds,” Stulgis said. “So it’s just growing rapidly and it makes me feel really good every day while you’re watching the kindness.”
Shared Dream Dresses also offers wedding accessories such as hairpieces, bouquets, handkerchiefs and shoes.
People from all over the United States and even the United Kingdom and Australia have taken part in the foundation.
NewsNation affiliate WKBN contributed to this report.