A bride’s jaw dropped in shock when her airman brother – who she didn’t think could make her wedding – surprised her on the dancefloor on her big day.
Right up until the night before the celebrations, Tori Schmidt, 29, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was holding out hope her brother Deric, 31, could be by her side.
Deric, Tori, and Tori’s twin sister, Abbie, share a close bond, so they were devastated when Deric, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, told Tori he wouldn’t be able to return home from deployment for her wedding.
The family even created a cardboard cutout of Deric they used in his place at many of the events leading up to the big day.
The wedding ceremony itself went ahead without Deric, and as the day rolled on, Tori had made peace with the fact her brother wasn’t going to be there.
But when Abbie headed outside later in the night, she noticed a familiar figure in military uniform heading towards the venue, at Cavallo Fields in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
She gave her older brother a big hug, before running to grab Tori’s wedding photographer so the pair could surprise the bride.
With cameras rolling, Deric made his way through the crowd on the dance floor, walking up behind his sister and getting her attention.
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As soon as Tori saw Deric standing there, her jaw dropped and she froze in shock, taking in a moment she thought would never happen, before the pair came together for an emotional reunion hug.
Abbie said: “It was a moment that I don’t think anyone will ever forget.
“My sister described it as two of the best days of her life [in one]: the day she got to marry her husband, Nick, and the day her brother came home from deployment.
“It had reached the point that the night before the wedding, I had to talk with Tori to explain Deric wasn’t going to be there, because I was concerned it was going to suddenly hit her right before she walked down the aisle.
“I think that was really the only moment that we both were, like, yeah he’s not going to be here – though it didn’t feel real still.
“The happy tears were pretty immediate, and as soon as he walked up the hill, my fiancé and I gave him a hug, and we grabbed him to run into the barn to get Tori.
“Even though he had missed almost the whole day, in that moment, it didn’t matter – it felt like he had been there the entire time.”
