a story

Four years ago today, two people about to be married woke up on their wedding day wanting nothing more than to just keep things simple.

They wanted their friends and family together.

They wanted an idyllic, short ceremony in which their friends participated.

They requested that all of their guests dress casually (the bride-to-be literally begging people to wear jeans and sneakers).

They wanted a casual reception with music, barbecue, beer, horseshoes and paddle boats in a quaint outdoor setting with minimal fuss and lots and lots of pumpkins.

But most of all, they wanted to be happy, and they wanted their guests to be happy, too.

And then Hurricane Ivan blew into town and instantly that casual, laid back, outdoor wedding with barbecue and paddle boats was whisked away into a super formal ballroom where the bride and groom had to argue with the employees of the establishment that no, the pavilion that was now under four feet of water would NOT be dry in time for the noon wedding, and freaked the hell out because everything had suddenly gone wrong.

The bride was in tears. The groom was pretty close. Every detail they had planned for months suddenly had to be changed in one way or another.

Tables were quickly set, flowers were quickly arranged, the altar was quickly set up and 120 confused guests started to arrive.

The ceremony was short and sweet, and the bagpiper, while incredibly loud (because who the hell has bagpipers play indoors), still sounded so beautiful.

The guests, all dressed in jeans and sneakers, gathered around the super formal ballroom setting and drank beer, ate barbecue and cupcakes and celebrated.

And when the day was done, everyone was invited to take home with them the centerpieces, the photographs, the pumpkins at the altar, and everything else that wasn't tied down, and the bride laughed because it looked as if that super formal ballroom was being looted by a very wet, underdressed lot.

Four years ago today, I married my husband and we survived Hurricane Ivan to the best of our abilities, and even though things were insane for a while and nothing turned out the way we had planned, we still had just about everything we wanted. And that was enough.

It still is.



What is the moral to this story, you might ask...

Always, and I mean always, have a backup plan to your outdoor wedding.