“I was kind of in shock, but just so happy I started tearing up,” Skyla said to Inside Edition Digital about reuniting with her ring. But she made a promise not to put it back on until their 50th anniversary.
Nearly half a century after losing her wedding band, Skyla Carmona’s husband, Phil, slid the same ring back on her finger in a ceremony nearly five decades in the making.
The occasion marked their golden anniversary, or 50 years of marriage, and the ring had been missing for 48 of those years.
“Dad, 50 years ago you placed this ring on Mom's finger and it's been all over the place. Actually, it's just been in one place,” their son Justin, a minister who served as the officiant, joked during their vow renewal ceremony.
Skyla, 69, lost her wedding band only two years after her 1973 marriage to Phil, 71. “We had only been married a little over a year and we got into an argument one day and we ended up in the woods across the street from our house and we weren't able to find it,” Skyla tells Inside Edition Digital.
When they got married, they knew each other for six months. Phil bought the ring at a mall kiosk on their way to the chapel in York, South Carolina. Skyla picked out a long blue dress– Phil’s favorite color– and changed in a gas station bathroom to surprise him. Two weeks later, Phil, who was stationed in the military, returned to Vietnam for seven more months.
It was about two years after getting married that Skyla lost the ring. She believed it may have been lost in a patch of woods in Massachusetts, and so they searched the area multiple times over the next 48 years, but it appeared to have vanished. “It left a void in our lives,” Skyla says. Still, she always held out hope that she would find it one day. “Deep down, I knew I would get it back one day," she says.
Last year, Skyla reached out to a Massachusetts metal detector Facebook group asking for help in coordinating a search. The biggest obstacle was getting permission to search the closed-to-the-public military base at Fort Devens. Generous volunteers sorted through red tape to make it happen.
Though it was several hours into the search, it took Jay Stokes of History Discovered just 15 minutes before he struck proverbial gold.
“Heard a loud beep. Sure enough. There it was,” Stokes tells Inside Edition Digital. “I understood what the terrain was and I kind of used my wits understanding what old trees were, what new vegetation looked like.”
“I was kind of in shock, but just so happy, I started tearing up,” Skyla says. But she made a promise to not put the ring back on until their 50th wedding anniversary, which was a few months away.
Then on Feb. 2, exactly 50 years after saying "I do," Phil and Skyla renewed their vows in front of family and friends at the same venue where it all began. All eight of their children were present. Their daughter, Alison, planned the whole thing. Six sons walked Skyla down the aisle. She wore her 50-year-old wedding shoes, and a different blue dress.
“Not too many things last 50 years. Marriages are one of them for sure, but there are other things that you have outlasted as well,” Justin said while officiating. “I'll name a couple of them right now. Phone books, rotary phones, VHS tapes, cassettes, dial-up internet, pagers, Walkmans, 8-tracks, typewriters, fax machines and Phil Carmona's hair.”
Next, Phil and Skyla exchanged vows.
“We didn't know what to expect when we got married. We had no idea what was going to happen. We'd only known each other a little over six months and we don't know what's going to happen the remaining days, but I do know that what got us here is going to carry us through,” Skyla said to her husband.
“Knowing that you are there and have always been faithful, true, and frankly just an awesome chick. I'm at a loss for words. I love you,” Phil said back.
The 25-minute ceremony was sealed with a kiss.
As for the ring? It’s never leaving Skyla’s finger again.
