ELORA – The kindness of some Centre Wellington residents saved the day for a Toronto couple getting married at the Elora Mill recently.
Wedding days can be stressful, even more stressful when the groom loses his wedding ring on a snowy peak.
That’s exactly what happened to the couple who got married at the Elora Mill on Feb. 20.
Adam Richardson and Tamar Silverbrook had their wedding ceremony at the Elora Mill before noon and went to Victoria Park with their wedding party for a snowy photo shoot.
Richardson said they wanted to do a photo that celebrated winter.
The party decided on throwing snow up in the air.
“When I went to pick-up the snow, my hands must have shrunk a bit and I threw up the snow in the air and at that moment the ring flew off my hands,” Richardson said in a phone interview from Hawaii where the couple is on their honeymoon.
This moment of the ring flying off his hand was even caught by their photographer.
“It hasn’t even been an hour since the ceremony and the ring is gone,” Richardson said.
Silverbrook said there was some panic but they reminded themselves it was just an object and not a family heirloom.
After an initial search, the group went inside for lunch before a smaller group went back to continue combing the snow.
It was during this second search a family passing by inquired about what they were looking for. The husband, Bryan Poletto offered to come back with a metal detector and did so minutes later.
Another woman who passed by decided to post about the situation in a community Facebook group which got the attention of a father-and-son duo who came by with metal detectors of their own.
A township maintenance person was also trying to get their grandfather’s metal detector and the Elora Mill had three people also searching.
“The community really showed up and they showed up really quickly,” Silverbrook said. “It was just so much support, like everybody was so sweet.”
After raking and finely combing through shovelled snow from the area they were certain the ring would be, Poletto found the ring after about three hours in a completely different spot outside of anywhere anyone was looking.
“Had we not had that metal detector, there’s not a chance we would have found it,” Richardson said.
The couple regularly visited the area in previous years and have always found the locals welcoming, but Silverbrook said this small story speaks volumes about what a great community there is in Elora and Fergus.
Richardson contemplated how this would have turned out if it happened in their city, Toronto.
“There’s no chance that we would have had that kind of community outreach to help us and like maybe someone would have walked past and said ‘oh you should get a metal detector,’” Richardson said.
“There’s no way that people would have gone out of their way, you know, coming to the park or even being there, leaving, coming back. That was a lot of effort and that’s really appreciated.”
“It turned out to be a really great ending and an awesome story,” Richardson said.
