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Hundreds Brave Rain For Running Of The Brides

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Hundreds of women braved the rain and nippy temperatures Friday morning to score a bargain on a wedding dress at Filene's Basement.

As CBS 2's Susanna Song reports, some people stayed out all night to hold their places for the annual Running of the Brides event at the Filene's store at 1 N. State St. At 6:30 a.m., the line stretched from the corner of State and Madison streets where the store is located, all the way east to Wabash Avenue.

The first bride-to-be standing in line said she had been out since Thursday at noon. She already had a strategy planned for when she got inside.

"I took a survey. We're going to bank to the right, and we're going to go in the back. We've got a mirror that we picked out, and we've got a strategy," she said. "We plan on stretching and pumping up our muscles before we go in, and we're hoping not to fall."

Once the doors opened at 8 a.m., the brides-to-be made the running of the bulls in Pamplona look like an amateur event. They grabbed and dragged dresses, trying them on wherever they could.

Some women didn't even look at what they were taking. They just hoped for the best.

Why the madness? Several hundred dresses worth thousands of dollars each were on sale for as little as $250.

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