A Colorado couple had to deal with a wedding emergency even worse than a drunken toast by the best man: a rattlesnake bite while taking the wedding photos.
Johnny Benson was posing with his bride Laura at a reservoir near Fort Collins, Colorado, when a venomous snake crashed the shoot and bit the groom on the lower leg, according to the Denver Post.
"I felt this bump against my leg and, and I wasn’t sure I got bit or not. But I felt it. I looked down, and there it was, rattling," Benson told the Washington Post. "I was like, ‘You gotta be [kidding] me. Did this really just happen?'"
Johnny brushed off the attack until Laura urged him to look at the ankle.
When they saw the bite marks, Johnny had one thought.
"The only thing I could think of is we’re going to miss our big expensive party," he said.
The couple managed to flag down a ranger, according to photographer Maddie Mae.
“All three of us started waving furiously at him. He rolls down the window and we yelled, ‘He just got bit by a rattlesnake!’” Mae told ABC News. “The ranger, obviously not hearing what we said, yelled back, ‘Congratulations!’”
The ranger then saw Benson in distress and had him lie down and elevate his leg while he called the paramedics.
Not knowing how much venom might have been injected into the groom, the couple went to a local hospital instead of their wedding reception.
Luckily, there were no signs of venom injection, nor was there any swelling or other symptoms, according to NewsChannel10.com.
But there were ample photo opportunities.
The Bensons arrived late to their reception, but Laura had called to let guests know about the hospital detour. That gave one guest the chance to run to the store for some rubber snakes before the new couple arrived.
In addition, the couple added a garter-belt toss -- which wasn't originally part of the ceremony -- but they used a fake snake instead, according to the Washington Post.
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