Weddings
A person’s wedding day is one of the biggest days of their lives. It is the day that you promise to spend the rest of your life with another person while your friends and family watch. Many people spend years planning their wedding, and they spend thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, no matter how much you plan, things happen. The weather might not cooperate, the best man is hungover, the flower girl decides that she doesn’t want to walk down the aisle, or the dress tears. There are plenty of things that can go wrong during a wedding, and they cannot be avoided. This is something that Zac and Cindy Edwards learned on their wedding day.
Zac and Cindy
Zac and Cindy lived on the southern coast of Alabama. Zac was an officer with the Coast Guard and a marine scientist. He was stationed near Sector Mobile, Alabama. He loved the ocean, so when he proposed to Cindy, and she said yes, it was his dream to have a wedding by the ocean.
The Original Plan
At first, the couple was going to have a small family outing. After talking a bit about their wedding and Zac’s love of the ocean, they ended up planning a beautiful beach wedding. They thought that the beach would be the perfect place to begin their lives together.
A Gorgeous Day
The couple woke up on their wedding day, and it was cloudy. They worried that it would be raining by the time their wedding started. Fortunately, shortly before the wedding, the clouds moved out and opened up to clear skies. The waves that day were very choppy and dangerous. There were flags on the beach to warn swimmers that it was too dangerous to go into the water. Zac and Cindy thought that this would be good since they wouldn’t need to worry about people running around the beach and in the water during the ceremony. Everything seemed too good to be true.
The Ceremony
The ceremony began, and Cindy walked down the beach toward Zac. He says that he knew that he was meant to spend the rest of his life with Cindy. When he saw her walking toward him, he lost it. She looked so beautiful, and he couldn’t have been happier. Right after the couple said, “I do,” they walked closer to the water to take photos. It was then that Cindy saw something in the water and pointed it out to Zac.
A Struggling Swimmer
What Cindy saw was a boy named Jamel Robinson out at sea struggling to stay afloat. A strong current had carried the boy 300-feet offshore, and he couldn’t swim back. Since Zac was in the Coast Guard, he knew how dangerous swimming was when the red flag was raised. He says that people ignore the signs, thinking that they can still swim. People were ignoring the signs all day, which meant that the lifeguards were all out trying to rescue other swimmers. This left Jamel in the water alone. Cindy looked at Zac and told him to go rescue the boy.
The Rescue
Beach wedding quickly takes a turn when the groom stops his vows to jump in the ocean. Before jumping in, Zac took off his shirt. He was about to remove his pants, but Cindy told him that there was no time. Two other people jumped in the water to help, but Zac knew that it would be too dangerous. He borrowed a boogie board from the man who tried to help so that he could use it as a flotation device. The woman went out in the water with Zac to help save the boy.
A Dangerous Situation
By the time they got to Jamel, he was struggling to stay above water. They got the boy on the boogie board, but since Zac was still wearing his pants, he was weighed down. The lifeguards were nowhere to be found, so Zac and Jamel were both in danger. Zac started swimming to shore with Jamel on his back, but the current was too strong. They were hundreds of feet away from the shore, and he began to panic. Cindy was standing watching, and she started panicking as well. Finally, Zac heard the jets skis coming, and he knew that they would be alright.
Back On Shore
When Zac and Jamel got back to shore, Cindy ran over to hug her new husband. His nose was bleeding, and he didn’t want to get blood on Cindy’s dress, so he got checked out by the lifeguard and cleaned himself up before he celebrated with his wife. Fortunately, Jamel was going to be alright as well.
Jamel
Jamel and his mother were so thankful to Zac that they invited him to his graduation party. The pastor who married the couple said that Zac was a hero. He suggested that the couple get married the day before, and fortunately, they didn’t. Had the wedding not taken place on that day, Jamel and the two people who were going to save him could have died. Everyone was lucky that day.
