Massachusetts photographer terrified after he was stabbed at Maine wedding: "I could die in this moment"

Donald Halsing, a wedding photographer from Massachusetts, is slowly recovering after he was stabbed during a wedding reception in Maine that both he and his fiancée were hired to shoot. "This was a very frightening experience and it's hard to put it into words. A lot of people don't expect to get stabbed, especially if you are a wedding photographer," Halsing said.

It all unfolded last weekend at the Kingsley Pines Campground in Raymond, Maine. Both he and his fiancée, Ashley Wall, have a wedding photography business together. He says he was standing near the stage with the DJ when a member of the wedding party stabbed him with a pocketknife.

"He was stabbed kind of above his bellybutton," Wall said.

He says the man approached him prior and asked him about his business and the costs of weddings. "I thought he was going to take out his phone to write things down, instead he pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed me and I looked down and I saw I was bleeding," he said.

Halsing says fortunately the bride and several of her bridesmaids were all nurses and quickly jumped in to help.

"They sought to me immediately, they got pressure on the wound, they got it all packed, made sure that I was OK. It was an unprovoked attack. It was very scary actually. I was worried about, I could die in this moment. It was very terrifying," Halsing said.

Police say the suspect has been identified as 26-year Andrew Manderson. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. 

Halsing had to undergo surgery at Maine Medical Center.  While he's recovering at home, he's no longer able to work and the two are planning to get married in September. 

Family and friends are now raising money online to help the couple. "I've had to call our wedding vendors and cut things from our budget, and flowers, and décor, and we no longer have a coordinator, and I had to change lodging, because I need to focus on medical bills and rent and not paying for a wedding now," Wall said.

Halsing said he loves to shoot people's weddings and capture their special moments, but this incident has left him traumatized. "You can never really know what's going on in a person's brain. I just want to know why he would did this and I want to know if he feels sorry," Halsing said. "It's going to take months and months and lifelong impact."