Tornado Bridezilla.

It's taken me four days shy of four years, but I decided to finally share a more detailed, rather comical version of our wedding story to revive my blog. When I say, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." I mean it. I really do, but every word you're about to read is true. 

Fair warning--this is the lengthiest blog post I've ever written. Prepare for a few belly laughs along the way.

Mid-April 2013. I sat in an early childhood conference with one of my dear friends when I got an email from Carnival informing me the cruise I had booked for our honeymoon would no longer be embarking. With about 6 weeks until the big day, I panicked. I called Ryan, who instructed me to check other cities and purchase plane tickets. So, to New Orleans we would go. I should've known then. 

Two weeks before the day, I had almost managed to kindly kick Ryan's BFFs out of the house so I could move all of our stuff in. For this night, though, I cooked dinner and we sat altogether for one of the last times to watch TV. We couldn't find a thing to watch on Friday night. Kelly was running the remote and landed on a show called "Bridezilla." On this particular episode of a show none of us had ever watched, a woman in Oklahoma was preparing for her wedding day and she was every bit of a Bridezilla. (Note: for the record, I wouldn't consider myself such a thing. I was super chill before, during, and after, even considering the circumstances). The poor woman had a tornado ruin her May wedding. We joked and laughed about how terrible that would be. I should've known then. 

May 20, 2013 was a heartbreaking day for my home state. A terrible tornado hit Moore, OK, and reminded every citizen of the dangers that are possible with those wicked twisters. It put everyone in their place. When the newscasters were talking about MY wedding day a week out, everybody was on the edge of their seats. I was already in denial. I should've known then. 

May 31, 2013--THE BIG DAY! I woke up to many Facebook notifications and text messages wishing me "the best day ever" along with alerts from every weather app known to man about what was expected that evening. "Meh. Another May Day," I told myself. Then the messages of, "I'm so sorry, Madison, we're not going to make it to your wedding because of the weather" began at 10am. Nine hours before! Come on, Okies! You've got to be kidding me. They say this EVERY day in May. Plus, we've never really had multiple, horrible, national news type of storms within two weeks of each other. I should've known then. 

My bridesmaids and family tried to keep my mind off of it. I don't think they realized I had my phone which was constantly reminding me of two things: "it's my wedding day" and "you are in a tornado warning all day long." Thanks, technology. 

Two hours out and about 50 people are in the building. We've asked the maintenance crew about where to take shelter in case such storm arrives. They call the first floor a "basement" (basement implies underground--this was NOT underground) and show us two of the safer places to be. I should've known then. 

Pictures were taken. First look was complete. Guests began to arrive. Some of those guests were from the west and started to share about what the building storms looked like. In my bridal room, right in front of me--the one who has successfully been in denial for months until now. I escaped to the bathroom texting both my dad and Ryan to meet me there. 

Ryan was super chill and left quickly. My dad came in and asked if it would be okay if we just started later than expected, because the timeline showed the storm arriving in our area at the same time I should be walking the aisle. "We'll just let it blow over," he said. I confidently agreed and returned to my room. 

All too quickly he returned to escort me and my bridesmaids down to the first floor. I saw the many people who had braved their way to the venue on my way down, offering them smiles of thanks while meeting their fearful eyes. Sheesh. Why today?!

They took Ryan and I to the bathroom and offered us two metal chairs. I hadn't realized just how many people were in attendance or already come and gone to seek safety. 125 people signed my guest book that night. Nothing compared to the 550 people who RSVP'd, but I guarantee it was 125 more than my parents and I wished to be responsible for that evening. 

I looked around at the familiar faces sharing my space. I heard someone outside the bathroom say something about the children and elderly. I immediately demanded the chairs be removed from the bathroom to make more room for those people as I got down in the bathroom floor in my wedding gown I'd dreamed of wearing my entire life. No one listened to me, but the chairs were quickly taken by others. (I found out later the children and elderly were allowed into the "safest part of the building.") My sister and best friend from college sat holding my hands while Ryan left to comfort all his out of state friends who had never experienced a spring night in Oklahoma. 

At the beginning of our shelter seeking time, everyone was pretty calm--quietly sharing their disbelief in what was happening and walking by the bathroom to wave at me, the bride, who was casually sitting in a bathroom floor. Only one person struck a chord with me during the high stress time. They asked me to reschedule the wedding or just sign the license where I was sitting. Don't worry--I held my tongue, pretended they were joking, and let out a nervous laugh. The possible Bridezilla stayed in her place.

Then--all phones that were playing Gary England and other meteorologists started to drown out the chatter. 

"It's over a mile wide."
"It has produced multiple vortices."
"It's headed straight for downtown." 

People began to sing, pray, and cry, understandably. 

"THREE MINUTES UNTIL IMPACT!" some Rent-A-Cop who liked to pretend he was in charge yelled. "TAKE COVER!" 

Silence. Other than the ONE phone still picking up the live stream of Gary. I could hear it right outside the bathroom door. It seemed like forever. I'm not joking. Three minutes lasted forever in such conditions. Heavy breathing and crying could be heard, with some very quiet, very real prayers for protection. I opened my eyes to see Taylor staring back, I said probably the worst thing I could at the time, "Wow. I never expected to meet Jesus wearing my wedding dress." She gave me this shocked look and squeezed her eyes shut. I think she was strongly praying against that because she was worried about her panty line. 

"The tornado has turned south. It's now headed for the airport."

Sighs of relief. Thanks, Gary! I would remember the airport part later on after the wedding. We sat for a few minutes to digest what we had heard and unwind from our experience (and because the Rent-A-Cop realized all his power was soon to be forgotten. He couldn't have that). 

Then the race upstairs began. On the way back up, I was informed the building was running on a generator and that I was limited to 15 minutes. A 45 minute ceremony forced into a third of the time? Sure. I can do that. NOT. 

Wait a minute. Where's my bouquet? What bride walks an aisle without her bouquet? Bless, Joe Terrell. He bravely faced the flooding, winds, and hail to retrieve the bouquet his wife Jeannie had fashioned for me from my Grampy's vintage car. We'd taken pictures in the car that afternoon, when the day was still fairly normal. All normal was now lost. 

My bridal party RAN down the aisle to random songs on my playlist playing completely out of order. My sweet ring bearer, who nailed his part in the rehearsal, held back tears as he walked the aisle alone. It was my turn. The usher, who was a college friend of Ryan's, opened the door. "NOPE. I'M NOT GOING. NOT UNTIL MY SONG PLAYS."

I don't remember what Jacob said, but that was the split second my bridezilla popped out. (Sorry, Jacob!) My dad cracked the door so I could listen to the random music as the DJ was trying to find THE ONE. One thing was going to go right tonight. Mandi Mapes WOULD be played as I sprinted up the aisle. 

"No.. Nope... That's not it... Nuh-uh... OH! That's it! Okay! We can go!" 

I wasted so much time to have MY song play that my dad was rushed to give me away. He hugged Ryan, said the sweetest thing ever, and turned away, leaving my arms wide open for a hug. Oh well. The show must go on. Steve, my youth pastor growing up, shouted a quickened message because there was no mic, my mom ran to retrieve the unity sand we forgot in the mess, and the Rent-A-Cop asked us to scrap the Family Prayer. Uh. Sir, after the last 2 hours, we need all the prayer we can get. Go sit down. I've got 5 solid minutes left. 

Finally, it's vow time. Oh. Fireworks in the rain?! No! That's just a transformer blowing up right outside the window and catching fire. Tornado sirens, again?! Bonnie almost jumped off the stage. I glanced down to see my mom telling her it was to the south and east of us while she looked down at her PHONE that was still streaming Gary on low volume. Yes, that's totally normal for the mother of the bride, right?

I vowed my ever love to my groom. He vowed his love to me. We ran back down the aisle.

"HURRY! Cut the cake! We all need to leave!"

The few reception pictures were taken in 30 seconds to make our wedding look somewhat normal. I noticed the floor was wet and the bottom of my gown was gross from traipsing through it! Ew! Mom encouraged me to change back into the clothes I'd gotten ready in since land was no where to be seen outside already. Sure. (Men, you can skip the rest of this paragraph. No, really.) I couldn't find my bra. I had to BORROW one that was THREE cup sizes too big. Yup. What a let down that would be!

All guests had been thrown out into the rain at this point, minus our families. I looked out the door to see a car already flooded out in the street. How are we supposed to get out of here?! Thankfully, we were staying downtown for the evening to catch a morning flight to New Orleans. We didn't have far to go. That couldn't be said about the other 125 guests that were forcefully evacuated moments before. 

Todd offered to lead us to the hotel. We hopped in the little Jetta. The screen flashed--0 miles to empty. Well, the first argument of the marriage ensued. People had used my car to run errands all day. I didn't know it was on empty, but "not the time to be empty in this emergency" I was told. Ryan called his dad, who was leading us around even more flooded cars to higher ground. "Find us a gas station first, please." We made it to the pump. Todd waved and there we were alone in the car. 

Ryan got out, but the pumps were off thanks to all the electrical problems. He ran into the station in the pouring down rain, while still wearing his suit. The pumps were reset and he returned...with a scary looking man following him. He got to my car and started pumping the gas. Then, the scary man started yelling incoherent things at him. And then began chasing him around my car. (Oh my cow. Yes, that happened). Ryan quickly opened my door at one point and threw his wallet in and yelled at me to lock the door. Oh. So, leave my husband outside hurdling the gas hose every few seconds with a scary man screaming crazy things at him? Don't have to tell me twice! So much for better or for worse! I locked him out in seconds, scared out of my mind. Ryan told the scary man he didn't have money on him--which was the truth. It was locked inside with me now. The scary man stopped chasing him, grunted, and waved goodbye. SERIOUSLY. (I told you at the beginning you wouldn't believe me).

Ryan got back in the car and we took off to the Colcord. The valet was working in the horrible conditions, so we grabbed our bags for him that way he could go ahead and take the car. The drenched rats entered the super nice hotel. Thankfully, Ryan had already checked in. I still needed to check on that airport. I leaned over the counter with the most serious face I could and asked the hostess if the airport was clear. I had heard Gary say it was headed to the airport. "Oh, yes, ma'am, it's perfectly okay," she said as she stared at the tornado coverage on national news already. "Well, if that changes, would you please let us know? We have a flight out in the morning." "Of course!" she said. SHE SAID. 

Before we could make it to the elevator, our valet ran up asking for the keys to the car. I'd finally hit the point of overwhelmed where you just are there, completely glazed over and I barely heard Ryan respond, "they're in the cup holder."

We got up to the room and someone knocked on the door. It was the hostess asking where the keys were. The valet still couldn't find them. Ryan lost his cool momentarily and informed her that the keys ARE, in fact, in the car. He looked at me, who sat in the floor staring at the nice carpet, and mumbled disgust of the valet not finding the keys. Before he could get too worked up, the phone rang. It was a different hostess telling Ryan there's a problem and they REALLY can't find the keys. He started to yell, which quickly shook me out of the funk and I looked at my purse. Oh. Shoot. I had the keys. I frantically grabbed them so he'd chill out and he apologized to the hostess, and ran out the door. He said the valet was SOAKED, with EVERY door wide open on the Jetta in the POURING rain. "I'm sorry, my wife...," he started, but the valet didn't care. 

I'd gotten in the shower. I just wanted to go to bed to sleep off this nightmare. And I did. No tears, I'd like to point out. Not yet. Those came weeks later. (See, totally not a Bridezilla!)

I woke to Ryan's voice hollering, "Lacey!!" in the hallway. I groggily reached for my phone to see it was 1am and wondered why on earth my sister-in-law was in my hotel room on my wedding night. She wasn't. She was on the phone, but falling asleep repeatedly on Ryan who had been awakened by his phone 30 minutes prior. 

Ryan had thought for the first 2 hours of his phone buzzing that it was his friends messing with him on his wedding night. And part of it was. Another person was trying to get a hold of Ryan...our pastor. Why?! On our wedding night?! He had kindly checked our flight status once he finally got home to Weatherford in the wee hours of the morning. Our flight was cancelled out of OKC. Thanks, hostess, who DIDN'T call. Ryan was trying to get a hold of his dad to figure out what to do. We had 11 hours to make a 12 hour drive to catch the boat. He woke me up so sweetly and informed me to get ready. We had to leave NOW. 

About 3 hours after checking in, we were checking out. The initial valet's shift was over; we didn't have to face him. While Ryan was helping the new one load our car at 2:00am, I remembered the tip. (Oops. The first one that definitely deserved one didn't get a tip. I had been in a daze). I checked my purse. No cash. (That was another lesson my new husband would teach me in time). Two well-dressed men exited the hotel. Did I mention it was STILL raining? They lit their cigarettes next to me and asked where we were getting in from. I tell them we were actually leaving and gave them the extremely shortened version of our last 7 hours. They apologized profusely for what I'd had to endure and paid the valet $40 for us. I lovingly refer to these two strangers as my "smoking angels." 

We hopped back in the fully gassed car and took off to find every route to the interstate closed. At the last attempt, Ryan asked if he could take my car AROUND the road closed sign. (Poor Jetta--I should've liked her more just for what she put up with on this one drive). I allowed him to since it was our ONLY shot. By God's grace, we didn't float away or hit anything. We were the only ones on the road for a LONG time. And it was STILL raining. 

At Purcell, we pulled off to get energy drinks because I was in and out of that daze and Ryan had only gotten a few hours of sleep in the last 2 days. Just south of Pauls Valley, the rain quit. At the SAME exact time, a bird pooped on our windshield. It was the biggest pile of bird poo that I'd seen in my entire life. The wipers were still on. Ryan turned those off as fast as he could. However, the damage was done. Jetta was out of windshield wiper fluid, too. (No, you can't make this stuff up). He had to peer out of a thin line at the bottom of the windshield for the remainder of the drive. 

Simultaneously, Ryan was calling Carnival, who didn't care about our problems, and Dallas Love to make sure we could catch our connecting flight there instead of driving the entire way to Louisiana. I love Love. They said yes. We parked our dirty, bird poo car in the garage and made our way into the airport. Maybe this nightmare was over. Maybe. 

We walked up to the ticket counter and explained our predicament. A Southwest employee named Benjamin helped us, and made SURE we would board first so we could sit together. In his words, "After all that, you two don't need to be separated." Thank you, Benjamin!

We grabbed a bite for breakfast at 5:30am and sat down at our gate to catch our breath. We sat for a long while intercepting messages and calls from our family, filling them in on all the changes to our itinerary. At last, normalcy had been reached. 

"Would Ryan Russ please report to the desk?" 

NOW WHAT?!

I watched my husband's facial expressions to try to get a clue. Are we not going to be able to get on the flight?! How far is New Orleans from Dallas?! We're going to miss our honeymoon! What a mess!

He looked pensive, but still serene. He was carrying something, but I couldn't see what because of the height of the airport chairs. He rounded the corner with two large bottles of champagne. Ryan and I don't drink, so I blurted--"how'd we get those?!?!" Will Rogers had sent them to us for all our troubles. How kind and thoughtful! Now--what to do with two bottles of alcohol in an airport? I had a backpack stuffed to the zippers because Ryan refused to take his own carry-on. It was almost time to board. Ryan shoved our gifts into the side pockets of my backpack. Classy! I begged him to carry it, but he wouldn't. Thanks, babe!

I hid the backpack underneath my seat and slept the whole flight. The Carnival transport met us at baggage claim and (ARE YOU THE RUSSES?!) knew who we were!!! They cared more than they let on! We got on the bus and made our journey to the boat. 

Did you know you have to check in alcohol to get on a cruise ship? I didn't because this was my first cruise; I also didn't realize how popular alcoholic beverages were until I entered into that line to check in my two comparatively small bottles, hoping to go unnoticed. After all, there were packs of beer with numbers I didn't know existed. Nevertheless, the man who handled my measly bottles chose me to make a scene. He picked up my bottles off the belt and turned to his friends, and shouted, "Here's where the party's at tonight, boys!" I kid you not. Every person in the vicinity stared at me. I turned shades of red I didn't know existed. 

We got to our room, threw the bottles in the closet (our host kept pulling them out and icing them ALL week long!), and fell back asleep. Trauma like the last 24 hours I'd survived deserved sleep. Ryan didn't want to go to the safety meeting and got it cleared by the blessed soul at one of the check-in sites that took pity on us. I strongly disagreed. Our luck, a hurricane was sure to hit. Or an iceberg in the middle of the Caribbean. I easily won that argument. We went to the safety meeting. 

At dinner that night, we met two guests. Naturally, the first question was where we were from. 

(Eye roll) "Oklahoma." 

"OH NO! Were you affected by the tornado?! Did you know that was the widest tornado on record?" 

"Uh. It was?! Wow. Yes, but...well, here's a quick version..."

After the very first time to share the never ending nightmare of a wedding day, the man looked at me straight in the eye and said, "If a storm pops up out here, we're throwing you overboard." Joy. I knew who to steer clear from all week. Just in case!

The rest of the week went well. We won the Love and Marriage show as they newlywed couple and basically were famous everywhere we went. We won ANOTHER bottle of champagne. We swam with dolphins, ate crazy food, and enjoyed an overall NORMAL honeymoon. 

No icebergs, no hurricanes, no more tornados.

It's a story that will be shared for years to come by all who were involved. I've been told our day is memorable--that the guests will never forget it. (Probably in part due to the hail damage to their vehicles! They could get a new car, but those insurance rates will never be the same!) I won't be able to forget it, even though sometimes I try. After all, tornadoes that ruin weddings actually don't happen EVERY day in Oklahoma--only on my wedding day and a random episode of Bridezilla.