Anonymous stranger pays for bride's N93,000 wedding dress

A bride-to-be got a big surprise when she went shopping for a wedding dress, and learnt that a stranger had paid for the bridal gown.

Liz Jensen and her fiance, Jimmy Gillespie got engaged last month during a romantic ice skating outing.

"My fiance proposed Jan. 25 in Vivian Park," Jensen of Provo, Utah, told ABC News.

"We went ice skating, we built a snowman, and he said, 'I have a short film I want to show you.’ At the end there was a clip of my sister saying, 'I believe Jimmy has a question for you right now,' and the video cut out. That's when I saw him [Jimmy] down on one knee."

Jensen, 21, happily said yes and the two began planning their May 1 nuptials, unaware that a complete stranger would soon be playing a part.

"I went last Friday to go look at wedding dresses at a pop-up shop," she said. "I actually ended up going alone and was trying to get opinions from other people in the store. I was really having a lot of fun and then I put on 'the' dress. Right when I put it on, I said, 'OK, this is the one.' It was perfect, so I went around to the front to pay for it."

According to Carrie Ling, who's a co-owner of the shop Elizabeth Cooper Design, before Jensen could even pull out her wallet, another bride-to-be had already picked up the tab.

"I think she planned this from the get-go," she said. "She came in tried on a couple of gowns and I asked, 'You didn't like anything today?' And she said, 'Actually, I'd like to pay for one of their gowns.'"

Ling said the woman noticed Jensen was alone. "So, she pointed to Liz and said, 'I think I'll pick her,'" she recalled.

"She wanted to be anonymous and that was all that went into it. We rang her up and she left."

Ling informed Jensen of the exciting news: that a complete stranger had paid for her $465 (N93,255.71) wedding gown in full.

"In my mind I thought, 'That happens at the drive-thru at , that doesn't happen with a wedding dress," Jensen said, laughing.

"I was just so incredibly touched. To have that person who can look inside themselves to do something nice for someone else, it's something I'll never forget for sure."

The young couple, who met their freshman year at Brigham Young University in Provo, plans to use this experience to personalize their wedding reception.

"We want to have our marriage built upon that principle of giving to other people," Jensen said.

"We want to have the news clip of our wedding dress story and a table set up where guests will pledge to be kind and do a service for someone else."