Bride surprises father by wearing late mother's wedding dress

When Grace Mixon married in September, she surprised her father by wearing her late mother's wedding dress at the ceremony.

The emotional moment when she made the big reveal to her dad was captured on camera by Maclin Photo and Film, which shared the clip in a now-viral Instagram reel.

In the clip, Mixon's dad Chad Mixon is facing away from her and then turns around after she taps him on the shoulder. When he sees his daughter in the familiar dress, he breaks into tears.

"I told you that you had nothing to worry about," Mixon, 24, told her dad at the time.

"I love you so much. You look so gorgeous," he replied in tears.

"Is that mom's dress?" he asked later, adding, "You look just like her."

Mixon told "Good Morning America" that she had not initially planned to wear the dress her late mother, who died in 2022, wore to her 1997 wedding to her dad.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be in my near future," Mixon said.

But Mixon said she had tried on another dress but it didn't feel right so she gave her late mom's gown a try.

"[I] ended up trying on my mother's dress at my grandparents' house and it fit me like an absolute glove," she recalled. "There was no alteration needed or anything like that. And so I was like, 'I'm just gonna take this as a sign as maybe I should just honor her this way.'"

Mixon said only a few people knew what she planned and both her dad and now-husband had no idea.

"I was more nervous for my father's first look than I was [for my first look with] my husband," she said.

Looking back on the surprise, Mixon said both she and her dad broke down crying but she wouldn't change a thing about the experience.

"It was just such an amazing moment that I would never trade for the world. That moment will never top any other moment in my life, I don't think, especially with him," she said. "It was one of the best decisions. I would not redo it any other way."