Words by Smiley Team
Scottish locals came to the rescue and saved the wedding of a Floridian couple whose luggage was lost in transit.
When Amanda and Paul Riesel planned their dream destination wedding on Scotland’s island of Skye, in the Hebrides, they couldn’t have imagined what it would be like. Costing £12,000 and two years of planning, the trip ended up being strung out across three days worth of delays.
“All of us had breakdowns along the way,” Paul told The Guardian. “It was delay, delay, delay.”
The couple’s plane was first diverted to Philadelphia, and things only went downhill from there, as they were stuck in different airports along the way. It was only when they finally arrived in Inverness that they realised their baggage hadn’t arrived with them.
[Sign up here to receive a weekly dose of positive news in your inbox]
“We got to the luggage carousel to see it was completely empty and our bags were not there,” said Amanda, who had thankfully carried the rings and flowers in her hand luggage. They thought they might have to cancel the wedding.
With no suit and no wedding dress, Amanda and Paul were ready to call off the wedding that they had spent two years planning - but they hadn’t factored in the determination, and generosity, of the people of Skye.
Around midnight on Monday, their photographer, Rosie Woodhouse of Love Skye Photography, posted an appeal for help on a Skye social media site. By 10am the next day, through the flood of responses given, Amanda had been offered eight wedding dresses in her size, and her husband had a full kilt set.
The wedding dress Amanda ended up wearing was donated by Theresa, a dinner lady at the local Broadford Primary School, which meant a lot to Amanda, who is also a dinner lady back in Orlando.
“Wearing it meant even more to me knowing it came from someone who loves and feeds her students just like I do,” said Amanda, who was more than pleased with her ‘perfectly imperfect’ wedding.
Photo credit: Rosie Woodhouse at Love Skye Photography
DONATE: Give your clothes to TRAID, a charity which aims to stop clothes from being thrown away.
GET INVOLVED: Volunteer with TRAID to help them to support sustainable clothing practices.
