The sun was shining. The church was beautiful. The bride and groom arrived on time.
And then just as the local vicar began the service to marry British couple Elizabeth Gray and Lewis Aubrey, there was a "ping!"
"Was that the ring?" Rev. Nicholas Claver asked the best man, standing sheepishly in his kilt.
Indeed it was: And, as the Telegraph tells the tale, it had bounced away and vanished.
The wedding was halted and the congregation conscripted into the search - dismantling flower arrangements, lifting carpets and peering down grates. (The best man, Matt, who also happened to be the groom's brother, even let guests rummage inside his sporran - the hanging pouch that serves as pockets for the kilt-sporting man.)
No luck. Ten minutes later, the bride's mother offered up her own ring so the service could go ahead.
As wedding disasters go, this one is more the laugh-it-off side - though, maybe not so much for the best man. (Other than talking the groom through a case of nerves, keeping a handle on the ring is pretty much the first and foremost task.)
But despite the good fun that Hollywood has had with this classic wedding foible, it doesn't really rank on the disaster list - which as, the Wedding Channel suggests, are more likely to include rain, pimples, a melting cake and, of course, the potentially catastrophic case of ruining-your-makeup-by-crying-at-the-altar.
In this instance, the search continued after the vows, but also turned up nothing. So with the wedding party at the reception, Rev. Claver returned to the church with a spade and a flashlight - and after two hours, he found the ring trapped in a crack between a step by the altar.
"I took it down to the reception and the best man was standing outside," he told the Telegraph. "I poked him in the ribs and said, 'you owe me a drink.' He was overjoyed."
As one of the bridesmaids observed to the Telegraph: The vicar, who put the proper ring on with a few ritual words, was the day's hero.
And at the very least, the couple now have a great story to tell - with a Hollywood rom-com happy ending.
Any lost rings or other mishaps in your wedding past? Share the tale.
Erin Anderssen