A wedding party in Washington got an unexpected surprise while getting ready for the big day. Bridesmaids discovered a dead cockroach sewn inside the bride’s wedding dress, hidden between the layers of lace and beading.
The moment was caught on video and posted to TikTok by a creator known as emilylewis. The clip has since gone viral, drawing millions of views and thousands of comments.
The dress belonged to the bride, who seemed to be the poster’s sister-in-law. It was said that the discovery happened while she was putting on the dress on her wedding day.
Bridesmaids worked together to remove the insect from the gown
The video shows several women working on the dress, which was made by bridal brand Maggie Sottero. One bridesmaid, whose hands are shown with light pink nail polish, directed the process while using tweezers to reach into the fabric. Another bridesmaid, with light blue nail polish, held the fabric open, while a third, with dark red nail polish, used a thin black tool to separate the layers.
As they worked, the women went back and forth between joking and expressing concern. “I can’t help but laugh,” one of them said. Another responded, “Oh, it’s hilarious, but now I’m like afraid.” The first bridesmaid replied, “You have to laugh so you don’t cry.” Finding bugs in wedding dresses is a broader issue, as a Georgia bride discovered ants on every layer of her dress at an outdoor wedding.
The caption on the original video reads: “Can you tell the bridesmaids are doctors lol #weddingday #weddingdress #roach.” On-screen text in the clip says, “when the tailor sews a dead cockroach into the wedding dress…”
As the bridesmaids widened the opening in the fabric, one of them said, “Okay, we’re here, we’re here, we’re in, we’re in, we’re in. Okay, now I see the lace. Now I see the outer lace.” Another bridesmaid then said, “Oh, there he is, there he is.” The emotional stakes of wedding attire can be high, as seen when a bride discovered makeup stains on her dress after months of alterations.
The bridesmaid leading the process then said, “Okay, ready? We, we have a breach.” When another bridesmaid, off camera, asked if what she was seeing was a bug, she confirmed, “What is it? That looks like a bug. That’s a bug.” The insect was then pulled out of the dress. The video ends with a shot of the dead cockroach lying next to a pair of scissors and a black tool, with on-screen text reading, “like I’m sorry what – “
Despite the discovery, the bride went ahead with the wedding after the dress was sewn back up. In a follow-up video, Emily, who is the bride’s sister-in-law, said she wanted to answer questions and clarify some details, calling it “NOT an update – just answering some Q’s.” She said the dress and wedding were not hers, but her sister-in-law’s, and described the dress as “beautiful.”
She offered two possible explanations for how the roach ended up in the dress. “Option 1,” she said, “the roach crawled into the dress at the factory or at the bridal shop and just like no one noticed, no one saw it, no one did anything about it.”
The second explanation she offered was “that the seamstress was trying to curse the f–k out of my sister-in-law for whatever reason,” though she said she did not believe this was likely, describing her sister-in-law as “a very sweet, kind little lady.”
She also said some commenters shared similar experiences of finding bugs in wedding dresses from bridal shops. She said that given how much people spend on wedding dresses, “there should be no bugs anywhere near any part of it.” She added, “If you’re getting married anytime soon or you’re going dress shopping, make sure there’s no bugs crawled up there in your s**t.”
According to Emily, the bride and her brother are currently on their honeymoon in Croatia for about two weeks. She said she plans to share a further update once the couple returns and the bridal shop or seamstress responds. “Until they’re back and I have an actual real update to share from the bridal shop or the seamstress, what their like explanation is for like, what the f–k, why the f–k there was a roach in the dress, then it’s just going to be me holding it down on TikTok,” she said.
The videos have drawn a large number of comments. One commenter, who said she previously worked as a manager at a bridal shop, wrote: “I worked as a manager in a bridal shop. I also pressed almost every dress that left. We would do them after the shop closed for pickups the next day. There is no way they missed that bug. It’s impossible. Even if was not something nefarious… she deserves to be compensated for something like that on her wedding day. Tell you SIL to reach out to the place and show them the video. See what they will do. The event is over but perhaps they well return money and pay a dry cleaner to preserve it.” Emily replied to the comment, writing, “Thank you so much!!!!! I will!!!!”
Another commenter questioned how the insect went unnoticed, writing, “You usually do a final fitting before taking the dress, how did no one catch it. Also someone had to know it was in a little pocket.” A separate commenter wrote, “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get a refund! that is unexceptable and traumatizing, let alone EXPENSIVE.”
Published: Aug 11, 2026 11:19 am