Wedding planning rule #8459: Expect the unexpected.

Posted by Sara in Weddings.

No matter how much you obsessively plan for anything, there will always be at least a few major things that do not go to plan: your reception venue burns down (didn’t happen to me, but happened this summer to some other SJ brides), your dress comes in the wrong size (happened to a coworkers now wife), or a hurricane hits the place where your soon-to-be in laws live, bringing a tree through their upstairs window, closing the airport, and potentially  leaving them without electricity for weeks.

Obviously the most important this is that they are OK. Aside from the craziness of the storm, the two of them, and their cat, Brandy, are doing alright, although now they’re trying to figure out what to do– and how to get up to Jersey for our wedding.

A few weeks ago I was reading about Hurricane Rita in some article about storms that have hit TX.

“Did you realize that we are getting married almost 3 years to the date when we evacuated from Rita together?” I asked D.

“Are you serious? Wow. I can’t believe it’s been that long ago now…”

That hurricane evacuation was the first true test of our relationship. We had been dating just a short amount of time before the newscasters and weather reports began to alert Houston and surrounding area residents of the storm that they were anticipating. With Hurricane Katrina just being a few weeks before, everyone was slightly panicked, trying to figure out the best way to get the hell out of H-town. My roommate at the time initially decided with some friends to help to Oklahoma; we were going to meet up with some people who went early to Austin. Every where gas stations were jacking up prices, hotels were completely booked, and people were getting out and getting out fast.

We didn’t leave until later that week. Our job at the time still required us to work, right up until they started to call for citywide evacuations, and we figured as long as we left early in the morning, we’d be OK.

We did not realize that every one else in Houston was thinking the same exact thing.

I heard from family later that they kept showing aerial shots of the people trying to leave the city, cars snaked along the interstate for miles and miles. If they would have looked close enough, they might have seen D and I sitting in one of those cars, trying to cook Ramen on the roof.

I looked back at my blog to read the accounts of the trip. This is part of what I had to say then:

well, here I am, about 3 months in Houston and I’ve officially had my first hurricane evacuation… 15 hours of driving/sitting in traffic later, and Donnie and I have arrived to lovely Lara’s mum’s place, in Victoria, which normally only takes an hour and a half to get to. I shit you not, boys and girls– believe what you’ve seen on TV– the traffic was insane.

I should clarify that it did not take the full 15 hours to get here– we spent about 7 1/2 of that crawling our way towards Austin, like the other 1.5 million people trying to get out of the city/surrounding towns, but after being in the car since 3am and only making it  10 miles by 10:30am, we decided to come up with a Plan B. Lara had come down to get her parents together because they were calling for a mandatory evacuation down here (and apparently the news was advising people who couldn’t get out to write their SS #s on their belly with permanent marker…shudder.), but because the storm’s course shifted, it became a safe, and closer, refuge.

* * *

I remembered thinking of Stephen King’s The Stand while we took made our mass Exodus out of the city… Every store you came across hand spray painted signs written on particle board which said “No Food,” “No Gas” “Closed to Evacuate,” and so on. Closed and boarded up shopping centers became makeshift camping sites for people who needed a break from sitting in traffic, or who ran out of gas. Vans and cars filled with families, young children, and friends who piled in together sat waiting on the highway with car doors and windows open, fanning themselves with old newspapers and magazines to cut down on the gas that the AC would use.

D and I spent 15 hours together straight and were able to make it work. Not only did we not kill each other, we didn’t fight. We were sensitive to the other’s moods and feelings and tried to bring comfort to the other one and just make each other laugh. Without knowing it, it was a true test for our staying-power, especially once we ended up hitting bigger obstacles together: the kind that weren’t created due to weather patterns, but the kind that brewed from the mistakes that we both made.

And now, down in TX, his parents are braving the after-effects of the storm together. D’s parents have been together for decades–through good times, and bad, through sickness and in health. Through good weather and horrible storms that send tree branches through the 2nd floor window and force you to sponge bathe with cold water.

I could be depressed about all the storms that we’ve already had to brave together, or I could be optimistic and see that come hell or high water, we’ll always be able to see the rough times through to the end.

To all our friends, family, and readers down in TX, you’re in our thoughts–be safe!

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