Since your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life, you’re going to want to relive every blissful moment from your big day time and time again. That’s why wedding photo albums are such important keepsakes: They give couples and their family members a tangible way to visit the event whenever you please. Since these albums are filled with priceless memories no one can replace, misplacing the book of photos is enough to send any couple into panic mode. On January 4, 2023, Albany International Airport workers found a missing wedding album in one of the airport terminals, CBS 6 Albany reports. For the past week, many people have been on the hunt to track down the rightful owners of the album, and as of January 10, 2023, the airport workers are officially one step closer to finding the owners.
After putting their detective skills to good use, two people—one from Pennsylvania and another from Texas—called the Albany airport with an important clue. Both of them recognized the chapel pictured in the photos of the album, which they identified as Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Honolulu. The two individuals noticed the carved wood behind the church pulpit, and knew it was familiar, according to Times Union. “They matched the wooden carving background,” describes Doug Myers, director of public affairs at the airport.
Although the airport isn’t certain where the callers learned about the missing album, it’s quite possible they saw it on the news. After the Times Union and other media outlets published the story a week ago, news stations, such as FoxNews, picked it up, so it quickly gained national attention. Since then, a huge search party has been assembled, with many people trying to figure out the couple’s connection to the church. According to the outlet, some recognized the chapel and reached out to the institution. “We’ve gotten several emails and calls,” says Faith Dubke, the church’s business manager. Members of the Lutheran Church even went through the archives of old records to see if they could match the photos with the married couple in the album. Others checked to see whether the two were alumni at a school that the church used to run, which closed down about a decade ago. “We’ve got a couple of people who are trying to get in touch with our alumni and trying to see if anybody recognizes the faces,” Dubke notes.
After taking a glimpse at the attire and hairstyles in the images, Dubke says the wedding probably took place in the 1980s. An apparent rearrangement of the church’s interior has also helped nail down the time frame. According to Dubke, the location of the pulpit has been moved since the photos were taken.
The mission to reunite the couple with their wedding album first started after the album showed up at the airport’s lost and found office. The airport is still looking for the owner, and they aren’t stopping until they find the couple. “While a number of items are left behind in our terminal by our travelers and visitors, many have a sentimental value of the item, far above the intrinsic value of the item,” Myers explains. “In these cases, we often make an extraordinary effort to locate the owner.”