"I phoned right away and said, 'If he needs a job, let me know.' I'm always looking for a good tailor," she said. "When you know how to sew, you know how to sew."

Coulter, meanwhile, has been blown away by the response to Halil Dudu's kind act.

"When I first posted it on Facebook, I just thought my mom and maybe four other people would see it," she said. "But to know it's gone out to millions of people, that's really strange and wonderful."

It was a surreal experience, she said, watching the mostly Chinese-born wedding party communicate back and forth with the Syrian refugee fixing the dress.

"I had no idea what anyone was saying. They were switching back from speaking Mandarin to Kurdish," she said. "For a person who has been so uprooted and seen so many awful things, it's very cool of him to be so willing to just jump in and help."

As someone who's witnessed a lot of wedding dress breakdowns, Coulter quietly worried to herself when she saw the zipper snap. She knew it wouldn't be an easy fix, especially when all eyes would be on the bride as she walked down the aisle.

It would need to be a perfect repair job. That's about the time Halil Dudu walked in.

"I'm thinking the only way to fix this is to sew her into the dress. It's a long process and not an easy one to look seamless, unless you're talented," Coulter said.

"It seems small, but it's actually huge. What do you do if there's no zipper on your wedding dress? There's not many options, unless you have a Syrian refugee man come in and save the day."

gmercer@therecord.com , Twitter: @MercerRecord