A COUPLE searching for their perfect wedding venue in Mexico almost lost their lives when they were kidnapped at gunpoint.

Frank and Jennifer Massabki, from Miami, Florida, appear on tonight’s episode of Brides, Grooms and Emergency Rooms where they discuss their horrific ideal.

The couple had chosen to have the destination wedding of their dreams in Mexico and had travelled to Puebla to scout out venues caterers and other wedding necessities.

It was about an hour into the trip when disaster struck when the couple’s car was hit from behind.

Frank explains: “I get out of the car and before I knew it I had a gun to me and I was panicking. My first thought was, ‘Jen’s in the car what’s gonna happen to Jen.’”

The two men then put a gun to Frank’s head before forcing him back into his own car and hooding him so that he was unable to see, and told to keep still or they’d be shot.

Frank continued: “They’re speaking to us in Spanish the whole time, ‘if you move I’m going to kill you and we’re gonna kill her.’

“I’m thinking what’s the worst that’s gonna happen now.

“They’re gonna steal all our stuff and let us off on the side of the road. Our luggage is in the back our computers, our phones, but at least we’re out of this situation.”

The Spanish-speaking couple were told that if they spoke English to one another they would be killed.

“Frank kept telling me we’re gonna be ok” said Jen “We’re just going to give them everything and they’re going to leave us alone.”

But as the men turned off to a dirt track the couple became more and more concerned.

Frank said: “As the minutes were going by. My initial best case that they were gonna rob us only was getting more unlikely every minute that they continued driving.

“I was trying not to think of the worst case scenario but they were doing it as part of the eventual ransom.”

They told us to hug each other, and at that point I thought they were gonna kill us

Once on the hillside, the couple tried to make a desperate plan to escape.

“They told us to hug each other, and at that point I thought they were gonna kill us” said Frank.

“We had said to each other whatever happens I love you, and at that point they told us to get up again.”

Jen was taken off separately by one of the men, where she got on the ground and began to pray.

She said: “I just said ‘God, I need a miracle right now’, and at that second the guy put his gun down and I grabbed it.”

The man jumped on her back where the pair engaged in a desperate struggle as she desperately tried to keep the weapon away from her.

Jen added: “The guy that was with me starts choking me to death, I start seeing my body convulsing in front of me and I thought oh s*** this is real.”

Hearing the commotion, Frank thought that Jen may be trying to make her escape.

He said: “I heard some commotion in the background and I said to myself that I had planted the seed in Jen’s head of trying to run and I thought that she was starting to run.

“I thought I’d start running and we’d cause confusion between them. Cause them to run after both of us or one of us and I thought that we could both outrun them, I just start running.”

Frank was able to make his way to a nearby garage where he was initially refused help by staff before a police car pulled up who agreed to help him.

Meanwhile, the man watching Frank had realised he had made an escape and returned to where Jen is being held.

She said: “The bigger guy, who was 6ft something just punched me straight in the face and broke my nose.

“And then they tied my hands behind my back and they tied my feet and then they went to look for Frank.

“I just talked to myself and said this is your life, you better figure it out, I had to get out of these binds.”

Sitting in the police car, Frank returns to the area in a desperate hope to find and rescue Jen.

“I didn’t know if I was in the right place” he said  “It was kind of looking for a needle in a haystack because I had been blinded the whole time.

“We were driving up the dirt road, and we started calling her name.

“It was just a shot in the dark, something clicked, and I felt like I had heard something and I just jumped out of the car by my instinct and just started running and screaming Jen’s name.”

Jen continued: “I heard Frank’s voice and then we started calling to each other. Although I knew he would never bring danger to me, I didn’t know if they had captured him with a gun to his head.

“I couldn’t believe it, I heard her voice and then everything else was a miracle. To see him and knowing that he tried so hard to come back to me. He’s my hero. “

The couple were taken to A&E so that Jen could be treated for her injuries.

She said: “I don’t remember much from the emergency room because I was in shock.

“That was in May I got surgery in June. They had to fix my nose so I got nose surgery.”

The couple married in November after deciding to relocate their venue to Miami after their first choice was ruined by hurricane Irma.

Despite the horrific ordeal, the couple feel it has made them stronger.

Frank said: “After you got through an experience like that you really have a new outlook on life and it just puts things in perspective.

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“We almost died together but we helped each other and we saw how nothing broke our bond and we lived our vows that night.”

Brides, Grooms and Emergency Rooms airs tonight at 10pm, on TLC

In other wedding news, this bride was left horrified when a troll sent photos of her in her wedding dress to her fiance. 

And wedding shamers mocked this bride-to-be for wanting to dye her dress blue to resemble a "corpse bride".

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