by Kevin Burton
Fourteen years ago, give or take six days, I attended a wedding in Wichita. My own.
Some of my friends thought I would never get married. So it may have been fitting that the heavens opened up on my wedding night.
Jeannette and I exchanged vows at 3 p.m., but by nightfall there were dark clouds, tornado warnings, sirens. April in the Midwest!
Our reception ended earlier than we intended as we told guests to seek shelter. A lot of that overpriced food we paid for never got eaten.
Our wedding night was spent in a fancy castle-style hotel room, with a jacuzzi, except for the part we spent in the basement with about eight other couples, after the sirens went off – again.
“You guys will have some memories,” said one of the other guests, as we waited for the all-clear.
I’m sharing these memories because my anniversary is coming up, in six days. Also because I found a story on the Good News Network about another tornado wedding. Sounds as if they had more of a close call than we did. The story below was written by Andy Corbley of GNN.
“Fleeing to the basement shelter of a hotel during a tornado isn’t exactly a mood-setter for a romantic dance, but that’s exactly the bizarre situation that 25-year-old newlyweds Alex and Sarah Schilke found themselves in last June,” Corbley wrote.
“Their wedding was hosted at the Grand Geneva Resort and Spa Hotel in Wisconsin, the reception was already underway when a tornado warning was issued for the area.”
“The wedding party and the rest of the hotel’s guests took shelter in the venue’s basement. A group of strangers heard that the newlyweds hadn’t had their first dance and offered to sing and play the guitar.”
“A heartwarming mobile phone video shows Alex and Sarah swaying to their first dance with strangers staying at the hotel shining their phone flashlights upon them to drive away the darkness.”
“That moment of having our loved ones and strangers come together to create this beautiful moment and share it with us was so important,” Sarah told the news outlet SWNS. “It restored my faith in humanity.”
“We could feel the care and compassion from all the people in the room,” Alex said. “After the dance I remember walking out into the crowd and I saw one of my groomsmen. We just fell into a hug and both started weeping. It was all very emotional.”
“Alex and Sarah met five years ago when they were studying computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.”
“Alex proposed to Sarah and the couple tied the knot after 15 months of planning. It could have been 15 years and they probably still wouldn’t have had contingency plans for tornado alerts.”
“When we were first told everyone was moving to the shelter, I was so shocked that I didn’t even process what was happening around me,” Sarah said. “And of course, there was a moment of grieving the wedding reception that we had spent 15 months planning.”
“As the 181-strong wedding party moved to the basement shelter, they were joined by members of every other ongoing party at the resort.”
“Things went from bad to worse for the couple when the basement was plunged into darkness when power went out, which Sarah described as a chaotic scene.”
“A few people from our party braved the storm and went upstairs to grab some drinks so we had some comfort.”
“As Sarah was losing hope, a group from a family reunion in a neighboring room offered one of their own to sing and play the guitar for them.”
“The couple agreed and professional singer Jack Jones sang a rendition of Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” as wedding guests shone phone flashlights at the couple in the darkness.”
“Recalling the unlikely setting for such a key moment, Sarah remembered a bunch of strangers coming up to ask if they’d had a first dance yet.”
“They said a member of their family attending the reunion is a professional singer and offered for him to sing us our first dance.”
“I was going around yelling ‘Anyone from the Schilke wedding, we’re doing a first dance!’” Alex recounted. “Sarah was doing the same in the other direction so we could cover the most ground.”
“I walked into a sea of flashlights and it almost felt like walking through stars. I saw Sarah standing in the middle of a circle of people looking quite anxious.”
“An hour and a half later, all guests were permitted to leave the tornado shelter.”
“We were really surprised that about 75 percent of our guests wanted to continue the party after all that,” Alex said. “We ended up continuing on the reception, finally began the speeches, and enjoyed a few more dances throughout the night.”
And the Schilkes, and the Burtons, lived happily ever after.
The end.
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