It only took one little zipper to almost derail a bride’s wedding day, and it only took the help of a remarkable stranger to make it right again.
While Jo Du was getting ready for her wedding ceremony last weekend in Ontario, Canada, a tooth on the zipper of her dress snapped. Sure, a lot can go wrong on such a big day, but not being able to actually close a wedding dress seems like a particularly bad bit of luck.
Members of the wedding party raced to a neighbor’s house to see if they could locate a pair of pliers and MacGyver the dress back on. To their surprise, they found the neighbor, David Hobson, had recently taken in a family of Syrian refugees — and the father of the family, Ibrahim Halil Dudu, was a tailor.
With some translation help, Halil Dudu stitched up the back of Du’s dress in front of an amazed wedding party.
Wedding photographer Lindsay Coulter said she had never seen anything like it.
“I shoot about 50 weddings a year and every wedding has its own unique story, but this one will always have a special place in my memory because of the generosity and kindness of a man who has been through such hardships himself,” she told CNN. “It’s an amazing reminder that we’re all in this together. I’m very grateful to be Canadian.”
The moment was special for Halil Dudu as well.
“I was so excited and so happy,” Halil Dudu told CTV news through a translator. “I like to help Canadian people from my heart.”
What makes the story even better is that Du and her new husband Earl are both immigrants themselves.
Coulter posted about the unlikely encounter on her Facebook page.
“I am so proud to live in Canada, a country who has opened our doors to refugees countless times,” she wrote. “I’m in awe of the families who have welcomed these strangers in to their homes and lives, and I’m inspired by the resilience of the Syrian people. We are truly blessed.”