For many women, losing a wedding or engagement ring can be utterly devastating. But one bride in Florida didn’t let it spoil her wedding day and honeymoon.
Liz Oswald and her husband were celebrating their Memorial Day wedding on the beach at Tarpon Springs, FL, when she noticed that her engagement ring had gone missing.
The couple had been in the water with the wedding party, so everyone got to work searching for the ring. But after an hour, Oswald and the others gave up.
“After an hour we thought, let’s make the best of the day and we’ll worry about it tomorrow,” Oswald said.
The next day, Oswald called up the Suncoast Research and Recovery Club, a metal detecting club from St. Petersburg. They showed up on Thursday with three volunteers, including the club’s president, and used Oswald’s boat to search through the waters.
The group narrowed down the spot where the ring may have been lost and ran metal detectors through the water, which was roughly chest-deep.
The ring was found within two hours, much to Oswald and her husband’s relief. With the average search for an engagement ring lasting about three months, a loss like this can be devastating for both bride and groom.
The president of the metal detecting club, Tom Jones, said that Oswald was grateful when they managed to find her ring.
“When we found it, she broke down and cried,” he told ABC News. “She was just beside herself.”
Oswald and her husband were happy to find the ring, as her new husband had been “heartbroken,” she said, “because I was so upset about it. It’s just a ring, we were just happy to be married that day… but I just felt really bad that I lost something he worked so hard for.”
This is the 27th ring that the group has found this year. For Jones, that’s been part of the club’s mission since he took over.
Oswald told ABC News that the club hadn’t asked anything of her in return; they were just glad to help.
Her story isn’t the only lost engagement ring story in recent news.
A woman in Ireland made headlines when she discovered a woman’s wedding band and engagement ring in a pub bathroom, and she put the word out in the hopes of finding the owner. The mother-of-two who lost them claimed them after three weeks.
Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a woman who lost her wedding and engagement rings in the 1960s got them back when they were returned to the couple’s daughter-in-law by a former neighbor.
