Melisse De La Mare had little hope of ever being reunited with the wedding ring she lost nearly three decades ago while on a skiing trip.
"I took my mitten off. I was like, 'Oh, no, my ring is gone,''' she said recently from her Oregon home.
The ring was special to her for many reasons — it belonged to her husband's mother and was engraved with his parents' names. It also carried the names of her husband and herself.
The new bride never told her mother-in-law that she'd lost the beloved ring.
Twenty-seven years later, a jeweler in Alabama rang De La Mare. Did you lose your wedding ring? she asked.
"I was like, 'Yeah, 30 years ago,''' De La Mare replied.
Heather Langley told De La Mare a client had told her about a wedding ring he'd found at an Oregon ski resort decades ago. He had kept it in a box for 27 years.
Langley contacted a reporter for The Oregonian newspaper. The journalist searched wedding license certificates until she found the right one.
Langley flew to Portland and delivered the ring in person.
"Oh my God," De La Mare said. "It's back on. I love it. I haven't taken it off." She doesn't plan to, either.
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