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SYDNEY — Get out there and spread some joy is the surprisingly upbeat response from a downtown Sydney shop owner after her Labour Day long weekend was ruined by an act of vandalism and theft.

Oh, and don’t throw rocks through other people’s windows.

The messages are from Brittany Woodworth, owner of Timeless Moments, who was awoken by a police phone call early Monday morning, alerting her that her shop window was smashed and several wedding dresses were stolen.

Though frustrated by the incident and tired after an early morning cleanup and then long calls to insurance and repair companies, she took to social media with positivity and a bit of humour.

“I don’t know what the end goal was,” Woodworth later told the Cape Breton Post.

“It’s not super easy to sell a wedding dress, even in store. I don’t know what the whole plan was. If he would have sold them, I guess I would have had to hire him or something.”

Cape Breton Regional Police caught and charged 33-year-old Randy Travis Alex for break and enter and possession of stolen property after the overnight incident.

Alex, whose court file lists addresses in We’koqma’q and Eskasoni, is now on remand and expected to have a bail hearing today.

Officers responded to the early morning tip from a person who had heard a smash and saw a man trying to enter through a broken window at Timeless Moments.

Witnesses helped officers locate a man matching a suspect’s description a short time later carrying a backpack with a white dress in it.

Officers later located the other two dresses stashed in a nearby building on Dorchester Street.

In a wide-reaching social-media post, Woodworth said “at the end of the day things can be replaced, nobody got hurt and that’s the bigger picture here.”

She then asked everyone viewing the post to do something nice for others.

Her positive mood continued for days later, even after a ruined long weekend cleaning up broken glass and busted mannequins.

“There’s not a whole lot you can do in those situations so you just kind of hope you can put some good karma out there and that it somehow makes its way back to you.”

It was the first time her store was broken into, but figured it was just part of the risk of owning a downtown business.

“You put all the security measures in place, but you can’t prevent everything.”

Insurance details are being sorted out, including replacing mannequins estimated at $1,500 a piece.

A large, double-paned glass window will need to be replaced and, because of its style, might take as long as six weeks.

“It puts a little damper on the atmosphere. We had so much natural light from the windows and it gives such a nice vibe in the store. It’s a little dark in that one corner now, but it is what it is.”

The recovered wedding dresses and gowns are in surprisingly good condition and only needed some in-store cleaning and steaming.

As for the alleged culprit’s plan for the dresses, that remains a mystery to Woodworth, but people keep asking for her thoughts.

“I like to think there’s a bigger purpose and not just someone being reckless at 1:30 in the morning.”

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