This Couple Lost Two Rings Within Two Days Of Marriage

Two lost rings to rule them all.

Trent Smith and Alena Gale Smith wanted a fuss-free wedding, which is why they decided to elope on a sailboat.

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"I love the water and it seemed like the perfect way to have something intimate and romantic," Alena Gale told BuzzFeed Life of her Charleston, South Carolina, wedding. "Our wedding wasn't about inviting or pleasing anybody ... It was just about focusing on the person you love."

With just a photographer and Trent's best friend Russell Hilton — acting as officiant — in tow, they set sail for marriage on Sunday, Aug. 9.

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Local sailor Bill Haynie rented them his sailboat for the occasion and acted as captain.

All was well in the Charleston Battery until just before the ceremony, when the wind picked up and the boat began to rock.

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"Trent was getting out the ring, which was in a jewelry pouch, as the ceremony was starting," photographer Sarah Wallace told BuzzFeed Life. "As he picked it up, a gust of wind caught the bag and flung it into the water."

"We watched it hit the water. Trent tried to reach for it, but we were several feet from the water, so he just dove in. it was very fast and very shocking."

Alena Gale was particularly surprised. "I yelled, 'Grab a net!' but Trent just went right in, and it was kind of heroic, even though I was scared for his safety."

Trent was in the water for about seven minutes before he was pulled back on board, with the ring bag in hand.

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"He was so happy, he thought he had gotten ring back," Wallace said. "When we realized the ring wasn’t in there, we were all so sad. They were in shock, but Alena Gale just grabbed him and kissed him."

Alena Gale credits the officiant for helping them sail past the suddenness of it all — and the boat captain for giving Trent his shirt. "Before we could be upset about it, Russell grabbed us and said, 'Come on, this is great.," she said. "The sun was going down perfectly, we kissed, and we moved on. The rest of the night was romantic, perfect and beautiful despite losing a ring."

Trent worked the incident into his vows, ad libbing, “When you get married, you’ll go to the depths of the ocean for each other.” According to Alena Gale, her new husband is a lighthearted guy who wasn’t upset about the missing ring until later that night.

"He woke up at 3 a.m. and said, 'I’m really upset about losing the ring. I feel horrible,'" Alena Gale told BuzzFeed Life. "We were so in the moment that we hadn't thought about the real loss at the time."

Alena Gale and Trent didn't let the missing ring bother them at all, but two days later, she lost her engagement ring at home.

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"I had been doing dishes, and I always take my ring off when I do that because it's a few sizes too big," Alena Gale said. "While I was painting with my son after, I realized I didn’t have it on. I said, 'Mommy needs to go put her ring back on,' but when I went to spot where I thought I'd left it, it was gone.

She frantically, if sheepishly, asked Trent if he'd hid her ring. Alena Gale noted that the didn't freak out, and instead joked, "Ill buy you a new one on our 100th anniversary."

Even though the newlyweds are ringless (and down more than $5,000), they've got their eyes on the bigger picture.

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Alena Gale is optimistic that the ring will turn up somewhere in her house, but she's not too broken up about it in the meantime. "It’s just something materialistic," she said. "You can laugh about it, you can cry about it, but we chose to move on and be lighthearted about it. It’s real life."

Hey, maybe her ring is living happily ever after with the Heart of the Ocean.

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