As parents helped their daughters search through the 2,500 dresses at Becker’s, many got wistful.

One father, Jack Pardo, found himself thinking about his older daughter who never got to wear a wedding dress. The older daughter had died at nine months old after falling off a diaper changing table.

“Your bring children into this world,” the father told me, “but you really don’t know how long they’ll be here. We don’t think about how many times we see stories in the newspaper about people who’ve lost children to accidents or illness. But these stories add up, while we’re living our lives, not noticing. You don’t know how long you’ll have your children to love.”