A woman whose fiancé passed away suddenly while at work has won a battle to be refunded the cost of the wedding dress she had ordered to wear during their nuptials. Fiona Mullins, 44, from Workington in Cumbria was left devastated when her factory worker boyfriend Kevin Elliott, 34, dropped dead of unknown causes in December. As Fiona was too devastated with grief to contact the various wedding companies to start cancelling her plans for the big day, her daughter Rhiannon Clark took it upon herself to call the bridal shop where the dress had been ordered. Fiona Mullins with a picture of her and her deceased fiancé Kevin Elliott . But according to Rhiannon, staff at The Wedding Warehouse in Carlisle said they were unable to refund the £1,200 deposit. Rhiannon told The Mirror: ‘They told her they could cancel the dress but the money would be held as a cancellation fee or they could carry on making it in case of a change of circumstances. ‘We could not believe what she was hearing, what was her fiancé going to do - come back from the dead?’ Rhiannon then launched an online petition to get support for the deposit to be refunded, which attracted 6,000 signatures in the first day. After the store started to receive death threats to staff, they contacted the family to say that they would be refunding the deposit in full. Rhiannon said: I’m so pleased they agreed to pay the money but the whole family are still upset this was deal with so badly.’ Bridal stores often have strict cancellation policies as many events can disrupt a wedding (picture posed by model) But the bridal store was forced to stump up the cash from their own tills though, as the designer who they had commissioned to make the dress had already started work on the garment and refused to hand back the money. Ailsa Taylor, Managing Director of The Wedding Warehouse, told MailOnline: ‘We are very sorry for her loss but we have to deal with emotional situations all the time and each situation is different. ‘We have people whose dad passes away or brides who are dying from ovarian cancer. ‘In my personal situation, I would love to give everyone their money back but I have to have a viable business to look after our existing brides, pay my staff wages at the end of the month and put a roof over my family’s head.’
Fiona Mullins, 44, from Cumbria, was engaged to marry Kevin Elliott, 34, . But the factory worker died suddenly last December . Fiona's daughter tried to get her £1,200 deposit back but struggled . After launching an online petition, the bridal store returned the cash .