Wedding Photographer Begs Thieves To Return Pictures

NEWTON, MA - For many people, the day they get married is one of the most memorable of their lives. But what if there was no record of it?

Wedding photographer Francielle Santo is making a plea to thieves to ensure that doesn't happen to a newly-married couple she shot in Maynard Saturday night. Shortly after the ceremony her equipment was stolen from her car, and with it, the memory cards containing the only copies of the wedding.

Santo, who runs her business out of Newton, is offering $1,000 for the return of the memory cards.

"All I want back are the flash cards," she said.

After the reception Saturday night, Santo drove into Boston to pick up friends and parked on Hereford Street in Back Bay. She left for about twenty minutes and returned to find her back window smashed in. Her camera, as well as other equipment, had been stolen.

"I was devastated. I was screaming and crying and saying how could this happen?" Santo said. "This is my worst nightmare."

According to Santo, two other cars were broken into on the same street.

Santo spent Monday morning scouring Boston-area pawn shops and leaving her information in case someone tries to sell her camera. She says if all else fails she will give the bride, a friend of hers, the option to redo the photos.

"It's obviously not going to be the same," Santo said. "But I'll do my best to get her the most beautiful album."

She hopes her appeal will resonate with the thieves or that someone who buys a used camera and finds the photos will return them.

She is also asking that pawn shop employees look out for her equipment - a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera, a Kingston compact flash 16GB memory card and a SanDisk SDHC 32GB memory card.