June 2, 2018

SO. THIS HAPPENED.

While in Tucson, we went to Saguaro Park or Sabino Canyon every night to photograph sunset. WOW, it was incredible! But I digress.

One of those evenings, a couple, decked out in wedding attire, was posing for wedding photos among the Saguaro. A beautiful desert setting.

We worked around the couple and didn’t give it a second thought. Until…we heard a call for some help. Did the bride fall into the cactus wearing her gown? Did rattlesnakes appear because it was cooling off?

 

Wedding Photographer Mistake

No. The photographer, choosing an artsy shot, had put the girl’s wedding ring on a cactus flower about 3 feet above the ground. Suddenly, whoosh! The ring was gone! Now desert isn’t that lush so we thought, heck, let’s go help because it can’t be that hard to find a ring. However, after about a 45 minute search we still hadn’t found it.

Had the ring rolled off the rocks? Did it go down one of the seemingly zillions of rattlesnake holes-honest, they were 4” apart, folks!

 

Where was that ring?  At dusk, we went to the car to get our headlamps and flashlights. I admit I was terrified of the emerging desert snake threat. But I wasn’t the only one! Darkness fell and we were still out there on hands and knees looking for the ring.

Can you imagine? A bride losing her wedding ring in a photo shoot? I really felt for her.
The Search “Ends”
Turns out, we should have “felt” more than that. Stu and I both had backed into Prickly Pear Cactus, those microscopically-sized needles that go through shirts, pants, underwear…..It was all made worse by being sweaty in the desert and we couldn’t get them out of our clothes! It was a couple of days before we felt no needles in our skin!

As for the wedding ring? Never found. We ran into the same photographer again the next night . She was photographing a different couple. She told us she purchased a new ring for the girl who lost her wedding ring the evening before.

 

Here’s hoping that photographer didn’t put any rings on cactus flowers the second night!

Lesson Learned!

 

By the way, Stu said there was NO WAY we would act as good samaritans again among Prickly Pear! At least no snakebites!