MANSFIELD, Ohio — Karen and Mark Cline were teenagers when they got married and didn’t have $150 to pay a photographer for their wedding photos.
But now they’ve got the pictures, just in time for their 27th anniversary on Thursday.
Their photographer located Karen Cline last week at the diner where she works and surprised her with a photo album.
“About a month ago, I was just cleaning out some of my old things and I found it,” said photographer Jim Wagner, who’s now 80. “I knew she didn’t have any money back then, and I just thought she might like to have it.”
It was too much for Karen Cline.
“I just stood there and cried and cried and hugged him,” she said, tearing up again as she described their meeting.
Wagner said that in 1980, Mark Cline paid him $50 to photograph the wedding. He showed the couple the proofs, but they never ordered any developed photos, which he said happens occasionally in his business. He said Karen Cline explained they had just bought a house and had other expenses more important than the photos.
Karen Cline said she was 18, and felt heartsick because she and her 19-year-old husband couldn’t afford to pay Wagner. Instead, all they have had was a single photo that someone else took, of her walking down the aisle.
Wagner said he was able to track down Karen Cline after running into her stepfather a few weeks ago. He said she immediately wrote him a check for $150.
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