Huntsville couple hopes wedding photos will be returned

[Guest Nicole]

Chris and Lauren Nelson came back from their honeymoon Wednesday to face some news no bride and groom want to hear: The SD card with most of their wedding photos was stolen, along with the photographer’s bag, from the Rainbow City Community Center.

The coupleÂ’s reception was at the center, and the photographer was making some family photos in the atrium when she placed a small black bag, containing her phone, some lenses and other equipment, and the SD card containing photos from the coupleÂ’s wedding rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, getting ready, first looks and the wedding itself, on a round bench. She apparently left it there.

Chris said when the photographer noticed she didnÂ’t have the bag, and that it was not where sheÂ’d left it, her husband used the tracking app on her cellphone to try to locate it. The phone was still in the building, where someone had removed it from the bag.

“I guess they did that in case it could be tracked,” Chris said. There was no way to track the rest of the bag’s contents.

The photographer reported the theft to police and notified the couple about the photos after they got back from their honeymoon.

She was mainly upset about the photos, Lauren said, rather than the other property she lost.

Those photos mean the world to Chris and Lauren, but the couple knows they wont mean much to anyone else. They estimate the SD card containing the photos is worth maybe $10.

They are appealing to the person who took the bag to send the SD card — the removable storage chip in a digital camera where images are stored — back to them.

Lauren is from Weaver and Chris is from Huntsville, where the couple now live. The wedding was about a year in the making, Chris said. The couple met about a year ago, started dating about nine months ago and got engaged about three months ago.

They got married June 1 in the Gadsden area because it was a sort of midpoint between Weaver and Huntsville, they said. They are JehovahÂ’s Witnesses and were wed at the Kingdom Hall in Gadsden, then the wedding party moved to the Rainbow City Community Center for the reception.

There was at least one other function in the building at the same time, Lauren said, so there were people there in addition to the wedding guests.

An announcement was made at the reception asking if anyone had seen the bag, but no one had.

Posts on Facebook have spread the word about the missing SD card and asked anyone who might have it send it anonymously to the Gadsden Police Department. The Nelsons are only interested in getting their wedding photos back.

Gadsden Police Sgt. John Hallman suggested instead that whoever has the SD card send it to the Rainbow City Police Department, where officers will have ready contact information for the photographer, who then can contact the Nelsons. The address is Rainbow City Police Department, 3700 Rainbow Drive, Rainbow City, AL 35906.

Should someone send the card to Gadsden, Hallman said, they will work to get it to the right place.

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/news/20180608/huntsville-couple-hopes-wedding-photos-will-be-returned