The happy couple looked like any other blissful pair in the wedding pictures, which were caked with drywall and lying near a curb in Conshohocken.
"Dominic and Nicole," an announcement said in one photo. "Congratulations."
In all, 215 pictures were held together by a ragged binder when Rob MacNamara stumbled upon them a day after last week's fire at the Riverwalk at Millennium apartment complex.
"I carried it back to my van and laid it on a towel to dry," said MacNamara, 49, of Glenside.
From then on, solving the mystery of the wedding album and its beaming bride and groom became a mission, one with promising hopes for a resolution.
MacNamara, an executive at the Aqua Pennsylvania water utility, saw the album on the grass Thursday while monitoring a water-main break near the site of the fire, which destroyed two apartment buildings and displaced hundreds of residents. Firefighters from the Upper Gwynedd Township Fire Company, Truck No. 80, had found the album among the debris, he said.
"Whoever it belonged to, we wanted them to get it back, especially if they lost a lot in the fire," MacNamara said.
Rose Fellin, a colleague at Aqua Pennsylvania, helped MacNamara lay out the photos on the office conference table to dry. Protected by plastic, most were in good shape. MacNamara had given one to Conshohocken police in an effort to find the couple. The binder was so damaged that they threw it out.
The pictures told the story of a couple who apparently married on July 21, 2007. The ceremony appeared to be on a picturesque bluff with a sea in the background. The groom appeared to be a decorated military man clad in dress whites. The bride wore a strapless gown with a bow in the back.
From the pictures, MacNamara discovered that the reception had been at the Black Trumpet Bistro & Wine Bar in Portsmouth, N.H. He called.
Co-owners Evan and Denise Mallett then set out on their own mission to identify the pair.
"We put our heads together and replayed last summer," Denise Mallett said.
The reception had been an intimate cocktail affair in a port town with a working harbor, she said. Guests dined on seafood empanadas and croque monsieurs. Wedding favors had a nautical theme.
After several days of contacting current and former employees, the Malletts got a break in the case. Someone remembered the groom's sister, a local resident. A flurry of phone calls followed.
The couple were identified - sort of. Denise Mallett talked with the sister and gave her MacNamara's phone number. Dominic and Nicole lived at Riverwalk, Mallett said, but she didn't know their last names.
As of yesterday evening, MacNamara had not received a call from the couple.
"They might still be running around and getting new licenses, identification and a place to live," he said.
Whenever the happy couple is ready, MacNamara added, their pictures will be waiting.
Find an Item?
Anyone who finds personal items around the fire site may return them by contacting the Riverwalk complex's management office at 610-825-4001, or by posting on www.conshycares.com.
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