Hello friends and family,

I have a story I'd like to share. During our wedding trip to Costa Rica last month, our VRBO in Hermosa Beach while staying at Hermosa Beach House was robbed. On the day of the wedding, during the reception, a group of thieves broke into our rental house directly next door to the venue which housed myself and our bridal party. While we mingled and enjoyed dinner within view of the house, they broke in through a window and stole everything they could find of value: 6 laptops, multiple sets of headphones, cologne, cell phones, all of the cash they could find, passports, dumping and filling our bags/ backpacks to carry everything. One guest, in particular, had a significant value of camera equipment and a drone. Every last piece of equipment was taken.

I cannot even describe the feelings I felt when this happened. A combination of anger, sadness, disbelief, and just pure shock. As soon as I heard what happened, I walked next door to find my laptop, AirPods, travel bag, and some jewelry were gone. Everyone was taking inventory. We all got to work almost immediately, compiled a list of stolen items and tried to remember any details we possibly could. I remembered right after dinner when I ran next door to the other side of the hotel where my mom was staying to grab the garter belt from her condo. As I was heading back to the venue I remembered seeing headlights in the street parked in front of our rental house and didn't think anything of it at the moment. Video evidence would later prove that it was the getaway driver's headlights I was staring into.

We did everything we could to try and locate/ track the missing items. As the shock wore off and turned to anger, some of us were ready to hunt down these thieves ourselves. We alerted my wedding planner (also the owner of the VRBO and the venue/ hotel) and called the police. The police came and asked a few questions and told us to file a report in town the next day. At that point, there was not much else we could do.

I am so thankful to all of my guests for keeping the mood light and the party going. We did not let it completely kill the night.

The next day Taylor and a couple of guests went into town to file a police report, which took hours and hours. The madness didn't end there, word spread and locals in the nearby town Jaco continued to try to scam, saying they knew the person that stole the items and attempting to extort us for money to get passports back.

One of the worst parts about it all was they had also robbed my sense of security. I couldn't sleep at all the following nights, I kept checking to see if the doors were locked, and there was really not much else I could think about. Every time someone walked by I thought to myself, could it have been them?

We purchased the property damage insurance. Unfortunately our claim was denied because it doesn't cover theft. The property owner claimed her homeowners insurance did not cover theft on the house either. VRBO said there was nothing else they could do to help and we hit a dead end.

I am not the type of person to ask for help, however I am at a loss and not sure what else to do. I want to do my best to try and make my friends and family whole again and try to get part of their money back. Eight people had items stolen, these people are very hard working, kind, and selfless people. Some of the best people you've ever met and who work so hard to have nice things.

We were robbed of more than $15,000 worth of things we worked so hard for. Any money raised through this Go Fund Me will be split amongst my guests who were robbed fairly, based on the percentage of total loss. Starting with a goal of the total $15k sounds totally unrealistic. I'm starting with a goal of half of that in hopes I can return a portion to each of my guests that were victims of the robbery.

I am not only writing this to ask for help and donations, but also just to share my story. I don't even know how to wrap this up because we did nothing wrong. Check and double-check your insurance policies. Be cautious, be observant, even when traveling in groups, do not assume you are safe. I wish I had more advice to give from all of this. Our doors were locked. The windows all had sticks in them. We were literally right outside. It could have happened to anyone, it just happened to be us and our guests on our wedding day.

It was still the best day ever because I got to marry the love of my life! The rest of the wedding was beautiful; we just had a slight bump in the road. More like a giant canyon we had to tightrope walk across. Talk about having to deal with a lot of things during marriage, we had to deal with a very big one only a couple of hours in LOL

Please feel free to share this post, and thank you for taking the time to read this.

P.S. Yes, I am taking his last name. Name change coming soon!