TSA rushes to reunite stressed bride with wedding dress left at airport checkpoint

A roller bag left at a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint contained a special piece of one of the most important days of someone’s life: A wedding dress.

The mother of an Ohio bride-to-be forgot a roller bag with her dress and the bride’s wedding dress at a TSA checkpoint at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, TSA said in a Monday news release.

“Someone was probably in a rush, was preoccupied and left the piece of luggage at the checkpoint and headed for their gate,” TSA said. “But this was no ordinary roller bag. It belonged to the mother of the bride-to-be. Inside were two dresses neatly packed — the dress belonging to the mother and her daughter’s wedding dress.”

The wedding was scheduled be in Columbus, Ohio, the next day, but the dress was stuck in New Jersey. The bride’s brother,Christopher Cepeda, went online to TSA’s Lost and Found Office and submitted a lost item form for his sister, Narolin’s, dress, TSA said.

Luckily for the bride, Loletta Nathan-Gordon, a TSA administrative assistant saw the email come in at 11:54 a.m., and six minutes later it was determined the roller bag was still in Newark.

The form indicated the response time would be about five days, but the request was filled almost immediately, TSA said.

Nathan-Gordan said she “put (herself in the bride’s shoes. I could only imagine how stressful that would have been for me if my mom would have left the dress behind. I would have freaked out.”

The roller bag was sent overnight and delivered to the bride’s hotel at 8:55 a.m., TSA said.

“She literally saved my sister’s wedding,” Cepeda said. “If it wasn’t for her, everything would have been a disaster.”