LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (KTXL) — Many people choose to get married at Lake Tahoe, but when it came time for the ring, things didn’t go as planned for one recently married couple.
It was a perfect Tahoe wedding.
“It was going off without a hitch and I was thinking in my head, ‘No weddings just go without a hitch, or did we just crack the code,’” said bride, Marlee Kent.
The short answer is no.
When it came time to exchange rings, groom Andrew Kent took the box holding Marlee’s Tiffany diamond ring. As he opened it, the ring fell through a crack in the dock they were standing on and right into the cold lake.
“I’m so happy to finally be marrying Andrew,” Marlee said. “There was a smile on my face the entire time, even though I was like, ‘no.'”
The ceremony was paused as the couple frantically tried to come up with a plan to get it back.
“Andrew was like I am getting in,” Marlee Kent told NewsNation affiliate KTXL.
The minister convinced Andrew not to get into the water because of how cold it was, so the ceremony continued even with the ring still on their mind.
“Inside I was like, okay, we’ll get it back. We’ll get it back,” Marlee said.
After the wedding, the couple went to Facebook for help and found Phill Abernathy, the founder of the Facebook group, Tahoe Scuba Diving.
“It’s one of those, the sooner the better, don’t hesitate,” Abernathy said.
The next day, Abernathy went to work and after 30 minutes of moving rocks he asked the second most important question, “I go, ‘Hey guys I have one last question, does your ring look like this?’ That is probably is the picture you have seen, where I have the ring and they are going ‘hurray!’”
“That moment is an ecstatic feel-good moment,” Abernathy said.
It’s a moment the couple says will last generations.
“We have a memory of a lifetime,” Marlee said.
“He says, ‘Effectively, yeah, you are famous now but for being a klutz.’ I was like ‘That’s alright,” said Andrew Kent.
The couple is from Washington state but visits Lake Tahoe every summer and they say future visits are going to be even more special.