It was around 6 p.m. when the storm clouds rolled in. My brother’s wedding rehearsal was cut short as the first fat drops of rain began to fall, and we all scattered to bring the sound equipment and chairs back into Faith United Methodist Church in Waseca. We raced the clouds to Torey’s Restaurant & Bar in neighboring Owatonna. Cocktail hour at the rehearsal dinner was off to a dramatic start with sideways sheets of rain, black skies and the distant wail of a tornado siren. The last of the waterlogged stragglers arrived, and we sat down with weather radar pulled up on our phones. Then the power cut out.
Over the next hour, one of the most striking things I remember is how calm my brother Ethan and soon-to-be sister-in-law Katie remained. While the storm raged on around us, the pair continued greeting new arrivals and joking with friends. They were each other’s ports in this storm. Their being together with family and friends was what mattered to them; plans going awry weren’t going to sway their outlook on the following day.
As much as we can plan wedding details down to the minute, life has a way of throwing curveballs at us. I was reminded of this during my conversation with Quynh-Huong Van and Vikram Nagarajan (page 14). For her Vietnamese tea ceremony, Van had ordered a traditional áo nhật bình that didn’t arrive in time. Luckily, a family member coming from Vietnam was able to bring one over from Ho Chi Minh City. “And then the sleeves were too long, and my mom had to cut [them] off the day before,” Van says. When her khăn đống diadem turned out to be too large, a seamstress added two pads at the last-minute. “We had a lot of seamstresses who were performing miracles,” Nagarajan says.
Emergencies happen, which is why it’s a good idea to plan ahead with managing editor Hailey Almsted’s wedding emergency kit (page 8), and check out a professional dry cleaner’s tips for last-second wedding dress stains (page 12). But it’s also important to keep the big picture in mind. The wind will calm down, and the power will come back on. What’s important is that we weather these storms with the people we care about.
Until next time,
Madeline Kopiecki
