ABBEVILLE, La. – Hurricane Delta sped up one Louisiana couple's wedding by a few days, but judging by the smiles on the bride and groom, it certainly didn't dampen the affair.
Ian and Taylor Gaspard from Abbeville were supposed to get married Saturday, Oct. 10, with 300 people to wish them well inside the Saint Mary Magdalen Church, a scenic brick building in the town’s center surrounded by green lawn and oak trees.
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But Hurricane Delta had other plans.
After watching the storm slowly make its way toward Louisiana — and after a bit of what Taylor described as bridal hysterics — the couple swiftly changed gears and held the wedding at the church Thursday instead, with friends and family in attendance. Skies were gray, but the rain held off while the wedding party gathered. The streets outside were largely deserted as residents finished up last-minute storm preparations or evacuated.
“It wasn’t supposed to be coming to us, and then all of a sudden it was supposed to be coming, like, right to us,” Taylor said.
“So, of course, I got hysterical, and my little superman here came in and saved the day,” she said, gesturing to her beaming husband. In her hands she held a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
She said her husband and her older sister improvised to speed up the ceremony at the church, which is just a few miles inland.
“Within 16 hours they threw an entire wedding together, and it’s beautiful. I can’t ask for better,” she said. “At the end of the day, we just wanted to get married, and it was important that we did it in the church because that was important to our parents and our faith."
Speaking after the church service, her mother Linda Choate said it was beautiful.
“She just wanted to be absolutely perfect for her groom. It was very important for her that she did get married in the church and when that almost didn’t happen she was so distraught,” she said. “They asked ‘Father, can we please do this before you have to evacuate?’ and he said, 'Today!’"
The groom, who could not stop smiling after the service, said he reassured his bride that it would all work out.
And it did.