Newark Airport TSA Rescues Wedding Dress

Image: PHOTO: Narolin Cepeda's wedding day. (photo via TSA)
Image: PHOTO: Narolin Cepeda's wedding day. (photo via TSA)
Lacey Pfalz
by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 10:33 AM ET, Tue August 25, 2020

At Newark Liberty International Airport over the weekend, TSA agents noticed a red roller bag someone had left behind at the TSA checkpoint, but what was inside was special: a wedding dress.

According to TSA, Narolin Cepeda, the bride, put her wedding dress in the red roller bag with her mother's dress. It had been accidentally left behind by her mother. The wedding was supposed to be in Columbus, Ohio the very next day.

Once the family realized their big mistake, Cepeda's brother Christopher acted.

He placed a request online for the lost piece of luggage. "As soon as I submitted the request, we lost hope of retrieving the luggage on time for the wedding," Christopher Cepeda said, as the website indicated that the response time was about five days. "But thanks to Loletta, she called me immediately after the request and I was ecstatic to hear from TSA so quickly."

Loletta Nathan-Gordon, an administrative assistant at the airport, noticed the request right away and sprang into action. It only took six minutes for someone to find the bag, and she contacted Cepeda right away.

Nathan-Gordon 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."

She expedited the bag, and they received it the morning before the wedding took place. "She literally saved my sister's wedding," Cepeda said. "If it wasn't for her, everything would have been a disaster."


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Lacey Pfalz

Lacey Pfalz

Associate Editor

Lacey Pfalz is Associate Editor at TravelPulse. She's a passionate advocate of responsible travel and believes the best travel experiences happen outside of a planned itinerary. Lacey currently lives in rural Wisconsin. She can be reached at [email protected].

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