Luckiest groom in Scotland!
Metal detectorist comes to the rescue when newlywed loses ring after only one day
LOSING your wedding ring only a day after tying the knot could seem like a rather gloomy omen.
Toby Binnian lost the treasured band in the sea while celebrating his nuptials with friends on a Scots beach.
The 30-year-old feared it had been washed away for ever – but the lucky groom has now had the ring returned thanks to the dedication of one man and his metal detector.
Mr Binnian and his new wife, Holly Clement-Binnian, had gone to Tyninghame Beach, near East Linton, East Lothian, with friends and family last Sunday – the day after their wedding – to continue celebrating in the sunshine.
Mrs Clement-Binnian, a dentist from nearby Haddington, said: ‘We were in the sea and having a nice time. Toby can be slightly accident-prone. Someone asked him if his wedding ring fitted and he said, “Yeah”, tugged at it and it plopped into the sea.
‘There was pandemonium, with everyone searching for it’.
The group scoured the sea and sand in the hope of spotting the band in the water, or in case it had been washed ashore by the tide.
The search for the ring resumed after the tide went out.
Mrs Clement-Binnian then searched online to see if anyone in the area had a metal detector – and came across Dean Houston via Facebook. The father of two – who a month ago founded the East Lothian Metal Detecting Club, which has 30 members – headed to the beach the next day armed with his ‘trusty’ Minelab Equinox metal detector.
He scoured the wet sand while the tide was out – and after only an hour he struck lucky.
Mr Houston, 30, from nearby Dunbar, said: ‘The family gave me a rough idea where it was lost but, as they were chest-high in water at the time, they found it hard to give me an exact area. I wasn’t feeling hopeful as it was a large area and it had been in the sand for a couple of days by this point.
‘But I turned my machine on and started hunting. Within an hour my trusty machine picked up the signal and there it was.
‘Holly and all her family came running over to me and they were over the moon.’
Mrs Clement-Binnian said: ‘[Dean’s] machine would make noises every so often but I’d begun to give up and wandered off to sit with my cousins.
‘Then I heard shouts and sprinted to the beach and he’d found it. We were so happy, relieved and grateful.’
Mr Binnian, from Newbyth, may now get the palladium band resized. He and his wife, who now live in York, have been together for 13 years and met at school.
Mr Houston, a support worker, I said: ‘I couldn’t believe I had found the ring and was glad I made the couple’s day.’
It is certainly a tale for the members of his metal detecting club, which he started ‘as a way to get like-minded peo ple together and share our stories and finds’.