PROVIDENCE, RI (WLNE/CNN) - An elevator malfunction could have ruined a bride’s big night, but she made it to her celebration with the help of some firefighters.
Melissa Rodger's dream wedding went all according to plan until it came time for the reception.
"I jumped in the elevator and we started to go up. The elevator just kind of shuttered and we thought, ‘Oh, weird,’ Rodgers recalled. “Then the doors never opened."
Stuck in the Providence Biltmore elevator just four feet shy of the 18th floor, Rodger and two wedding planners waited and waited.
"I was hoping that, like, 'OK, it'll just take a minute.' Two minutes, five minutes went by and I thought, ‘Okay, something might be wrong," she said.
"One of her bridesmaids came up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘We have a situation that's going on. Don't be alarmed but Melissa is stuck in the elevator," Melissa’s husband Justin Rodger added.
Soon, the fire department came and pried open the doors.
"Twenty-six years and I've never seen anything like this," said Chief Jay Viens with the Providence Fire Department.
The bride missed her own cocktail hour as firefighters worked to determine how she could get out without ruining her dress.
"We were prepared to get her honeymoon clothes down to her," Viens said.
But that crisis was averted when the technician came and got the elevator back up.
Melissa made it back on solid ground after a crazy 45 minutes in limbo.
“It was unfortunate but it's a great memory. It's going to be a great memory," she said optimistically.
Rodger said a cocktail was waiting for her the minute she got off the elevator.
The ordeal didn’t leave her with a fear of elevators, though she was a little nervous getting back on one.
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