When Liz Copeland and Harry Stein were preparing to get married at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia on Saturday, October 10 everything was going according to plan. Until the couple, and 22 members of their bridal party, got stuck in an elevator.
“When we’re getting in, Liz’s mom goes, ‘Gee, this is a lot of people, I hope we don’t get stuck,’” Stein told to ABC News, but that’s exactly what happened.
“We’re getting in the elevator to go down to the ceremony and it’s a big elevator because it used to be a torpedo factory,” Stein said to Washington D.C.’s FOX 5 News, “We go down about two feet and we stop. There wasn’t a crash or anything. We just stop and everyone just kind of looked at each other.”
The bride and groom, their parents, grandparent, the photographers, wedding planner and rabbi were all stuck. The group tried pushing each elevator button but it wouldn’t budge, so one of the wedding photographers, Christy Kissick, made the emergency call to the Alexandria Fire Department.
“Almost instantly, people took out their phones and started taking pictures,” Stein explained to Fox 5 News. “The photographers were fantastic. They start taking pictures of us taking pictures. They got a great picture of everybody in the elevator.”
Along with several of the wedding party guests, wedding photographers Christy and Adam Kissick of Kissick Weddings took photos of the couple making the most of the situation. Even the firefighters were captured in a few of the impromptu wedding photos.
“I just couldn’t let myself freak out,” the bride said to Fox 5 News. “I was just like – you know what? We’re going to get out of here. Then we’re going to get married and this is just part of the day. This is just part of the experience. So I was calm. My mother on the other hand was a little less calm.”
The group was stuck in the elevator for about 15 minutes when the firefighters arrived, opening the doors and helping each person out.
Here’s the fire department rescuing us from the elevator so we could get married. Thanks @AlexandriaVAFD! #copestein pic.twitter.com/ZiAOf6Z3Wl
— Harry Stein (@HarrySteinDC) October 12, 2015
“The moment we stepped out, we were like this is pretty funny. This is something we’ll remember forever and it just kind of kicked off the night in a fun way. It took us a second to kind of regain composure, get ready, go do the ceremony, but I think we’ll always remember that,” Copeland recalled.
The bride and groom married without any further interruptions, but did have a special wedding ceremony experience because of the incident.
“Because of the delay, we were treated to a beautiful sunset ceremony,” Copeland told ABC News.
The couple are currently honeymooning in Tulum, Mexico.
