Bride Thought Jumping into a Pool in Her Wedding Dress Would Be ‘Fun.’ Seconds Later, She’s ‘Drowning’ (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Shelby and Corey Crawford jumped into a pool at the end of their wedding reception in Chattanooga, Tenn.

• Shelby says her wedding dress immediately floated over her head and made it difficult to breathe

• Guests nearby continued filming because they didn’t realize she was actually struggling

By the end of Shelby and Corey Crawford’s wedding night, the newlyweds were sweaty, exhausted and looking for one last fun moment before the celebration ended. Jumping into the pool in their wedding clothes felt spontaneous, playful and completely harmless.

“It was something I had seen people do before and thought it would be a fun way to end the night,” Shelby Crawford, 30, tells PEOPLE exclusively.

The Chattanooga bride says she had casually mentioned the idea earlier in the day, but the plan didn’t become real until late that night when the summer heat and wedding adrenaline fully kicked in. Standing beside the pool with her husband, Corey, 35, the decision suddenly felt easy.

“By the end of the night, we were just kind of like, yeah, let’s go do it,” she says.

Before jumping in, Crawford thought she would be able to keep control of the dress underwater by holding the fabric down at her sides. But the second she leaped into the pool, she forgot completely.

“When I went to actually jump in, the adrenaline just got to me, and I didn’t do that,” she recalls. “So the dress just went over my head after I jumped in.”

As she surfaced, Crawford says the heavy layers immediately clung to her face. Even though she wasn’t underwater anymore, she still couldn’t properly breathe.

“I wasn’t being held underwater, but I still couldn’t really catch a breath,” she says.

Meanwhile, guests nearby continued filming what they believed was a carefree wedding-night moment. Crawford says nobody realized she was struggling because she never screamed or splashed around.

“They really couldn’t tell anything was wrong,” she explains. “They said I appeared so calm and quiet during all of it.”

Luckily, Corey was already beside her in the pool and quickly helped pull the dress away from her face. Even then, Crawford says the reality of what happened didn’t fully hit everyone until afterward.

“They were shocked,” she says.

The couple later posted the video on TikTok, writing in the text overlay, “The saxophones getting louder as everyone films me drowning in my wedding dress. They never expected millions of people to watch the frightening moment unfold online, though it now has 2.2 million views. Crawford says she almost didn’t upload it at all.

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“It’s funny to us that it went viral in the first place because we were just doing it for fun,” she says. “I almost didn’t even post the video.”

Now, the couple mostly laughs about the moment, even though Crawford admits the memory will probably stick with them forever. She says the incident has already become one of those stories they know they’ll never stop hearing about.

“Absolutely,” she says when asked whether the moment will follow them through marriage. “We are never ever going to live this one down.”

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