Armandria Mullen\u2019s wedding dreams did not include losing her dress in an alterations shop fire less than two months before her big day.<\/p>\n
The Scranton native and other brides are scrambling to replace their gowns after a malfunctioning dehumidifier ignited a smokey blaze Thursday morning at Shiraz Alteration Center in South Abington Twp. The owner and her daughter, who live upstairs from the basement shop, escaped the fire on Parkwood Avenue. The owner heard a popping noise and saw heavy smoke in the basement, said Fire Chief Sean Connolly of Chinchilla Hose Company.<\/p>\n
Smoke damaged the back part of the basement, where firefighters saw a lot of dresses, Connolly said. Firefighters from the Abingtons, Taylor and Dickson City doused the flames in about 25 minutes.<\/p>\n
Laura Roberts of Lackawanna County brought her wedding dress to Shiraz in April for $225 worth of minor alterations. She hoped to wear it when she and her husband celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary with a vow renewal in September. She learned Saturday from the shop that her dress was lost. Fabric from a T-shirt that belonged to her late grandfather, Stephen Fuchylo, had been stitched inside it.<\/p>\n
Mullen chose her dress in April. The layered ballgown she purchased for about $2,000 from Vow Floral and Formal in Clarks Summit needed about $650 in alterations before her wedding July 24. Employees at Shiraz planned to take the dress in and hem it and told her to come back July 7 for a fitting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a significant gown,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cThere was a lot to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her maid of honor told her about the fire Thursday night and she recognized the shop as she watched news footage of firefighters coming out of the basement. Her heart plummeted when she saw the fire damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just assumed the dress was gone\u201d she said. \u201cIt was immediate tears and I\u2019m not a crier, but it definitely got me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullen, who lives with her fianc\u00e9 Kyle Pieczynski in Exeter, texted the shop via a number posted on its Facebook page but did not hear back. When the shop posted a list Saturday of the names of people whose clothing survived the fire, Mullen\u2019s name wasn\u2019t on it.<\/p>\n
Mullen accepts her dress is gone. She hopes to be reimbursed and is willing to pay for another, more simple dress.<\/p>\n
Rae Georgia, owner of Vow Floral and Formal, offered to order Mullen a new dress, working with the same designer to get it to her in time for her wedding. Her colleagues have offered her their own wedding dresses, and she has also received support from other women affected by the fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel surrounded by community,\u201d Mullen said.<\/p>\n
Tunis Bridal Shoppe in Scranton\u2019s Minooka section offered replacement gowns, alterations and accessories to anyone affected by the fire.<\/p>\n
Roberts is also looking for a new dress online and at several bridal boutique shops in the area.<\/p>\n
The shop\u2019s clients wonder whether insurance will cover their losses or if they will be reimbursed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of us are ready to move on and accept it that our dresses are gone,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cI think the call to action is more so how are we going to replace some of these garments or just reimbursement and insurance information. There\u2019s lots of questions around insurance. We\u2019re just trying to get claim information or anything out of Shiraz so we can put in our claims, if we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the women understand the devastating impact on the business, they are unhappy with the lack of communication from the shop about their dresses.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of us have not heard a single word,\u201d Mullen said.<\/p>\n
Efforts to reach Shiraz management for comment on the fire and the lost dresses were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armandria Mullen\u2019s wedding dreams did not include losing her dress in an alterations shop fire less than two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179,6799,181],"class_list":["post-215962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-south-abington-township","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}