Dani Wilkening, now 18, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 6 months. ”The night that Dani was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, I woke up in the middle of the night and I cried,” Her mother, Vicki Goodnight, said. ”I said, ‘My baby’s never going to prom.’ That was significant to me that she wasn’t going to get all the milestones in life.”
18 years later, with some help from their community, Dani is proving Vicki’s late night fears wrong. Dani’s wheelchair makes it nearly impossible to try on the scores of dresses that most girls go through looking for a prom outfit, and her atrophied muscles made it highly unlikely that many off the rack dresses would fit. But Dani was determined to go to prom, so her sister Brittany took Dani to see Laurie Metcalf-Brock, the owner of the local store, Dream Day Bridal, where Brittany had purchased her own prom dress the year before.
“It scared me when [Dani] came in because I never had this challenge,” said Metcalf-Brock. “But I knew what could be done and can’t be done.” Metcalf measured Dani and emailed her pictures of dresses that she could custom make to fit. Dani picked out a dress, and Vicki asked her hair dresser to help Dani with her hair and make up. Before they knew it, several other local businesses were offering to help Dani get ready for her big day.
The last remaining problem was figuring out how to get all of this done without exhausting Dani. ”The big issue for us [on prom day] was logistically how we are going to get her dress on in one place, go and get her hair and makeup done at another, come back to the house and have to leave again,” said Vicki. “It is not that easy for someone like Dani.”
Metcalf-Brock came to the rescue, offering to close her shop on prom day and make it into Dani’s personal dressing room. “It made me cry, I was elated, I couldn’t believe that somebody would care that much,” said Vicki. On April 17th, Dani will go to dinner with her sisters then go to prom.
