Wedding memories are stolen during Kauai vacation

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Brides spend months planning every detail of their special day – what they never expect is to have no pictures to remember it by.

"It was kind of hard to believe, it's just one of those nightmares that you would never think would actually happen to you," said newlywed Kristen Wakamatsu Manegdeg.

Kristen's family is from Maui, so it's only natural that when it came to planning her wedding—she wanted to get married in Hawai'i.  And that's exactly what she and her groom, Junior, did last week Wednesday on their 5 year anniversary together.

"I mean it's something that we definitely can't do over and, you know—it's a once in a lifetime event, " said Manegdeg.

But the newlyweds only have iPhone photos from friends to remember it by, because their photographer's equipment, along with all the images from their wedding day were stolen.

"Sometime between 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock, someone came into our house while we were all there and awake—took all my lenses, my cameras, my laptop which has all the wedding images we shot in Maui—they took all of it," said Kristen's photographer, Erich Chen.

According to Chen, the break-in happened at a vacation rental in Anahola, Kauai where he and friends were staying following the Manegdeg's wedding on Maui.

"We called pawn shops and stuff and a lot of people say the same thing—it happens often in Anahola because the vacation homes there are really nice," said Chen.

Chen estimates the total value of everything that was stolen around $20,000.

"These images and this equipment is pretty valuable to us so we want to offer a thousand dollars to whoever can just return this equipment to us," said Chen, who has posted information about the cash reward on Craigslist: http://honolulu.craigslist.org/kau/pho/3597135728.html

In the meantime, Kristen vows to keep the faith.

"We haven't even seen them," said Manegdeg.  "To get a phone call like that is just kinda heartbreaking, so we're hoping the community pulls together to help us find our wedding pictures and let us have those memories that we can cherish together, forever I guess."

If you have any information, call Kauai Police at: # (808) 241-1711 or you can report it anonymously to Crimestoppers at: # (808) 241- 1887.

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