The bride, paramedic Sarah Ray, at the scene of a car crash on her wedding day. Image: Facebook
An American bride and groom - both paramedics - left their wedding reception minutes after their vows to tend to relatives who were in a car accident near their venue.
"There are a lot of people that are using the word 'hero,'" bride Sarah Ray of Montgomery County, Tennessee, told America's ABC News. “I don’t think what we did was heroic. It's just anything that any first-responder would have done."
Sarah and her new husband Paul had just been married when they received a phone call informing them that Sarahs' father and grandparents had been involved in a car accident.
"We were still at the church," she recalls. "Paul and I are both paramedics and a lot of our groomsmen and bridesmaids are also.
"My father, grandmother and grandfather were all riding to the reception and we all stayed behind.
“We just knew they had been in a wreck and the car had been totaled. We didn't know any injuries at the time."
Sarah's grandmother was hospitalised briefly; her father suffered minor injuries and her grandfather walked away from the crash unhurt.
"The first thing she (my grandmother) said to me was, 'Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry I ruined your day'," Sarah told the Leaf-Chronicle.The photo above was snapped by Sarah's mother and was uploaded to the Montgomery County's Facebook page where it has been shared more than 5, 500 times - and liked nearly 12,500 times.
"I think the photo is great. It definitely makes for a memorable wedding,'' added Sarah. "I hate that the actual accident had to happen, but everyone is going to be OK, so we can kind of laugh about it now.”