Despite fire, flood and foreclosure, the author’s wedding was still practically perfect in every way.
Illustration by SHOUT
When my husband proposed, it took me a few minutes to catch on. “I’d like to go shopping for rings tomorrow, if that’s okay with you,” he said, taking me completely by surprise. It wasn’t until Will leaned back, relaxed, and said, “Okay, we’re engaged. We’re getting married,” that I realized exactly what was happening. We spent the rest of that night talking about the kind of wedding we wanted. It would be an elegant dinner party. The music would be a strict playlist of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin and Louis Armstrong. There would be no cake (we don’t even like cake) or garter toss (because why?) and our photographer would not be dictated to by even the most entitled guests (just say no). Throughout the planning process, certain family and friends missed no opportunity to remind us that we shouldn’t try so hard to “control the situation.” Weddings are unpredictable, they said. But we were resolute.
The first bump in the road was the dress. I had found it, an ivory ball gown with pink and grey lace, at Alfred Angelo. It had been hard to find. My mother had recently passed away and missing the opportunity to shop for a wedding dress with her made me anxious, so it was a great relief when my oldest friend from kindergarten visited me in Richmond and we found the one.
My mother had told me I’d only get two chances in life to wear a “poofy” dress—prom and my wedding day. And so I searched. A dozen dresses later, when the salon associate realized glitter and rhinestones weren’t working for me, she said, “There’s one more you should try.” Before I even stepped up to the mirror, I could tell by my friend’s face that this dress was different—“Like a gown from Pride & Prejudice,” Lacey said. (She knew I’d love that.) When I saw it for myself, I knew my mom would have loved it too.
The dress was delivered to the store three months before our wedding date. I paid the final balance and opted to leave it there until my first alterations appointment. But, just four days later, on a Thursday, the company fired all of its employees and closed 60 salons nationwide without notice. Everything in the stores instantly became the property of nameless trustees, nevermind gowns like mine that were fully bought and paid for. I’m not usually a crier, but I spent the rest of that day actually weeping. I broke down in the middle of a Starbucks then quickly relocated to home and the middle of my bed. I texted my bridesmaids: How could this happen? Why did I leave my dress in the shop? Will a new one arrive in time?
Two days after I got the news, I stood in a bridal salon determinedly trying on new dresses and hating every single one. Just about the time I was resigning myself to getting married in peach tulle (the only thing my size on the sample rack), the phone rang and a voice on the other end said, “I have your dress.”
It was the former store manager at Alfred Angelo. She had smuggled my dress and some others out of the store. Vicki, you’re my hero.
So Will and I—and my bridesmaids—breathed a sigh of relief and settled in to our final to-dos.
The dress ordeal had been enough, we thought, and, surely, the only major challenge we would face. Until we got word about a month before the wedding that the Tobacco Company in Richmond had experienced a fire and would not reopen in time for the welcome reception we had booked there. This created two challenges: Finding a new venue on short notice and at a similar budget, and notifying our guests. Calls to every venue in Richmond brought us to the Omni Hotel, which had event space available and would discount the rate. Our stationer dropped everything to design postcards, which we promptly mailed to let our guests know about the address change. Surely, nothing else could possibly go wrong.
They say bad things come in threes—three hurricanes to be exact. Irma, Jose and Maria blasted through the Caribbean just weeks before our wedding, leveling Sint Maarten, where we had booked our honeymoon five months earlier. We know we are fortunate not to be among the residents of those islands, so I won’t say much about this here, but it took six consecutive hours on the phone to rebook a destination blessedly outside of the hurricane belt.
By this time, the last-minute cancellations of guests and the consequent second printing of our seating chart just five days before the wedding were mere aggravations by comparison. The truth is we were exhausted.
But on the day of, all the stress just went away. Even the biggest naysayers had to admit that our wedding went off without a hitch—our coordinator, caterer, photographer, bridal party and officiant came together like a professional symphony. All our planning was executed to our exact specifications, and the special intentionality of that day made any hurdles in the planning process completely worthwhile. And now we’re married. The certificate landed in our mailbox the morning we left for our honeymoon (new destination: Bermuda). Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.
This article originally appeared in our Weddings 2018 issue.
