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With this ring, I thee -- oops! Splash!
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN SEMINOLE -- It was a gorgeous setting for a wedding. The sun filtered down, reflecting off the gently shimmering waters near Lake Seminole as the couple exchanged their vows Saturday. With this ring, he thee wed. Then came her vow. Nervous fingers, a fumble. Tink. And into the murky water went the band of gold. "We heard it go ding and it started rolling," newlywed Michelle Miller, 33, said Tuesday after returning from a brief honeymoon in Edgewater, near New Smyrna Beach. "We're looking at each other and going "Oh no.' Everybody just watched the ring roll." As soon as groom John Miller heard the ring -- a gold band with three inlaid diamonds -- hit the pavilion's concrete floor, he assumed it had rolled under the wedding gown of his bride, Michelle Banks. Wearing a black tuxedo, he got down on the floor, lifted his fiancee's dress and looked underneath the white ball gown. While Miller was looking for the ring, some of the 30 guests were telling him it had plopped into the lake. "I heard everyone behind me say, "It went in the water. It went in the water,' " recalled Miller, 33. Mrs. Miller's boss, John Douglas, was one of those guests at Shelter 5 of Lake Seminole Park, which juts into an interior lake in the county park. "Everybody was paralyzed," he said. "It was like slow motion." The matron of honor jokingly suggested her young son could jump in the water and retrieve the $200 ring. But someone piped up there were alligators in the lake. A sign posted on the shelter has an illustration of an alligator with the words Danger -- Do not feed or molest. "If anybody should have gone in, it should have been me, and I wasn't going in there," said Miller, a cellular phone consultant. During those few awkward moments, Robyn Lucky, a friend and notary public who was marrying the couple, tried to take it all in stride. "She didn't know what to do," said Mrs. Miller, who works as a shipping and receiving clerk. "She was trying to be serious, but it was really funny." The ceremony continued for the couple from Clearwater, who met at a pub one year ago. Without a ring to put on her fiance's hand, Mrs. Miller did some quick thinking. She took off her diamond engagement ring and slipped it on her husband's finger. It only went as far as his knuckle, though. Since the ceremony had been delayed because of technical difficulties and the clock was ticking at the American Legion hall in Pinellas Park, the newlyweds and their guests left the ring behind and headed to the reception. Douglas said he told Mrs. Miller not to worry about the ring. "I tried to assuage things by telling her "Michelle, life is all about memories and this is something you'll laugh about forever,' " he said. Lake Seminole Park supervisor Fred Stager also thought the Millers' circumstance was unique. "Oh no," he said when he heard of the ring's whereabouts. "That's a first for that." But there was hope the Millers would be reunited with the ring. "We're going to see if we can find it for them," Stager said Tuesday before a four-person crew began the messy task in 4-foot-deep water. After three hours of pumping water and muck from the lake, the park employees struck gold. The gold band, that is. "It was kind of doubtful because the water clarity isn't the greatest," said assistant park supervisor Roger Overby. "But we went into it with a positive attitude." The Millers returned to the park Tuesday afternoon to get the ring. "I can't thank them enough," Miller said. "I got it on my hand. God smiled on us."
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
