No One Invited Irma

I’ve been asked this story more times than I can count, so as we are about to celebrate our 2nd Wedding Anniversary, 2nd IRMAversary, I’d love to document this CRAZY DAY!

I would say that it’s generally known and accepted that most brides during the week of their wedding are pretty stressed and overwhelmed with to do lists, family dynamics, fitting in their dress, and the other blah blah blah that comes with planning and having such a big event. Well, add the first Category 5 hurricane of the 2017 hurricane season to the mix and you’ve got yourself my crazy wedding week.

Ironically enough I was in a meeting with coworkers discussing plans of raising money to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey in Texas when a coworker said, “Isn’t there a potential cat 5 headed this way next week?” I instantly said, “You mean the weekend of my wedding?!” As if that would be the most catastrophic affect of a category 5 storm hitting Florida…. Don’t judge me.

Come September 6th, Wednesday before the wedding, we got confirmation that Irma would be hitting Florida and somehow hitting Jacksonville- with all the technology in today’s world you’d think a little more certainty of extreme weather patterns could be tracked more effectively- #ThanksForNothingTimDeegan. Here I am trying to finish up my last day of work before wedding and honeymoon while everyone is running around in typical pre- hurricane fashion hoarding all water, bread, and peanut butter in a twenty mile radius; and all I can think about is how are we going to freaking pull this off. After being asked for the tenth time if we had boarded our house, gotten water, or were evacuating or staying, I went into my bosses office and said, “I think I need to go home or I’m going to start uncontrollably crying.” She obviously sent me home and I went home and just sat on the couch and cried.

I’m already not a planner, not a detail oriented person, and had some complicated family dynamics I was working with to try to pull off this wedding and now my options seemed to be: 1. Embrace the Hurricane, roll with it, and hope it all works out. 2. Start over and reschedule……. I WAS NOT going with plan number 2.

Wednesday night, my Mother-in-Law to be and Sister-in-Law to be brought the pickle backs and music and we got tipsy and danced out my feelings- very productive I know, but trust me I felt A LOT better.

Thursday they called for mandatory evacuations and my second panic attack ensued. It occurred to me that caterers, florist, venue, DJ, and any other vendors we had booked were no longer bound by our contract because with a mandatory evacuation- businesses are legally obligated to close their doors for the safety of their employees. Call me selfish, but I was still determined there was a way to keep it together. After I could breathe again, I got in the shower, gave myself a freaking phenomenal pep talk- I believe it went something like, “If you don’t get your shit together and start making it happen, this wedding is NOT going to happen and you’ll have to postpone, and replan/hash out the details all over again, put on your big girl pants and get going” and then started making calls. First the venue- they weren’t sure if they were closing quite yet (though it was inevitable because of the mandatory evacuation), Second the caterer- Tacolu was amazing and the head of catering was so sweet and encouraging, reassuring me that they would figure something out in true Floridian fashion, Third the florist- AH-MAZING! She said she was in until she couldn’t be anymore and would drop off flowers before-hand, worst case scenario. Fourth was the DJ- he was evacuating but was looking for a replacement. Fifth the photographer- evacuating and finding a potential replacement. The list went on and on and not to mention trying to keep all the family and guests updated as I was finding out answers, which the answers were pretty vague until about Thursday night.

Because it’s getting pretty lengthy with logistics, I’ll give you the bullet points:

Thursday evening 6pm:

· No Venue

· Florist scheduled to drop off floral arrangements

· Photographer/Videographer found replacements (Replacements had never done a wedding before…)

· DJ- new DJ that was evacuating from Tampa and stopping in Jax just to do our Wedding (pretty baller if you ask me)

· Wedding Guest List- down from 120 to 80 approx- most of which my family in south Florida who were hunkering down for the storm

· New Wedding Night Accommodations planned (original were in evac zone and bridges might have been closed)

· Wedding party adjustments were made (some evacuated)

· Caterer agreed to drop off food on the way out of town

· And did I say No Venue?!

Obviously the venue was the biggest piece considering we busted our asses to get the rest figured out.

Thursday at 11pm, Caleb’s dad calls us in to the room to discuss options- getting real and accepting that this might be a quick beach wedding and rescheduling the party or having no party…. When Caleb’s Aunt Missy came in with the save! Missy’s friend was the manager of the Ortega River Club (did I mention Ortega was pretty much the only section in Jacksonville that wasn’t under mandatory evacuation at this point?!). She convinced her friend to reopen the doors for just four hours Saturday so we could get married and have one hell of a hurricane party. This was the most relief I had felt all week. The wedding was on!

Friday we had a beach rehearsal and then zoomed over to take a look at the venue. With a new venue came new details about where flowers/decorations would go, whether or not we could bring alcohol (ended up that we couldn’t bring in any alcohol we had to use their bar which left LOTS of leftover tequila and Sangria from previous plans), and so much more DETAILS. You know how I LOVE details. Thankfully, my sister Alison and friend Ashley came in to the rescue. Alison knew I wanted to get married outside, rain or shine, and created a vision for setting up the ceremony on the beautiful covered porch overlooking the river. Because of the reduced guest list, this became a realistic possibility.

Ashley began planning table arrangements, table placement, and all the other crap I couldn’t process, PRAISE THE LORD FOR THE ASHLEYS AND ALISONS OF THE WORLD. Meanwhile we also had to figure out how to pay for all of this because the old venue wouldn’t be reimbursing us for a hot minute (6 months)…… yea that definitely was fun.

Fast forward to Friday Night and I was feeling so incredibly overjoyed…. Until I realized that I had been stress eating and my dress was already a bit too tight…. Woops. Regardless, this wedding was happening! My mother-in-law and I split her very organized excel spreadsheet of guests with phone numbers and emails (praise the LORD for excel spreadsheets) and informed all the guests of the changed plans.

Saturday, September 9th, 2017 …. The BIG DAY! I traveled over to Caleb’s aunt’s house where we all were getting ready and the roads were EMPTY! It was a ghost town! While the wedding party got ready, Caleb’s cousins and groomsmen came in to the rescue setting up the flowers, organizing the logistics with the vendors, and ultimately making it happen! We also had a flower girl fill in, two groomsmen, and some ushers!

It was the most amazing day, set to the soundtrack of rain falling over the river in the background! Did I mention how much I love rain and everything it symbolizes?! My favorite movie is About Time- watch it and you’ll understand my excitement of pulling off a crazy rainy wedding. All in all everything fell into place, and because of the reduced guest list we actually Facebook lived the entire ceremony so feel free to go back on my Facebook timeline and enjoy lol… so millennial I know. Irma came to town the following day and thankfully we were all safe and had little to no damage- just a lingering tequila headache.

What stood out to me the most is that in the midst of chaos and trials, though you get to see the stress and ugly side of humanity (my bridezilla side), you also get to see the beauty in how humanity comes together to help each other. People came together for us in a way I have never experienced and ultimately that was the biggest blessing, other than getting married of course. Caleb and I got to experience what it is like to have our friends and family rally around us for our dreams and for our happiness…. We are pretty lucky. We are surrounded by beautiful humans that sacrificed so much to help us create the most perfect rainy, hurricane wedding. Though no one invited Irma, her presence elevated the love and support of those most dear to us and therefore allowed Caleb and I to experience something that truly touched and changed our hearts forever.

And NO! Our first child will not be named Irma, Karen!!!!!!! :)