After a wedding weekend so disastrous, guests deemed it the apocalypse, Jesse Cummings and Ashley Swyck have finally tied the knot.
“We managed to pull it off this time without any major acts of God,” groom Jesse Cummings said in an interview with CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM.
“It was a beautiful, beautiful ceremony and a lovely reception. Everyone had a blast.”
The Edmonton couple’s first attempt at a ceremony on July 27 was derailed by floodwaters, an evacuation order, hungry wildlife, and a sinkhole.
They were supposed to get married on the shores of Lesser Slave Lake, 300 kilometres north of Edmonton, but everything that could go wrong did.
The couple — who have been together for more than 20 years — would spend the weekend in a disaster zone.
‘This will go down in infamy’
Three days before the ceremony was to take place, the area began to flood after weeks of heavy rain.
Sections of Highway 88, the only road in or out, washed out. A sinkhole cut off access to Marten Beach Campground where more than 200 campers — including the couple and about half of their guests — were stranded.
Black bears, forced out of the woods by the rising water, began rummaging around the campground, one even eating the bride’s make-up bag.
Following an evacuation order, the ceremony was called off.
But after a pre-wedding honeymoon in B.C., the couple tried it all again, exchanging vows Saturday at a friend’s family estate near Sherwood Park.
This time, they were prepared for the worst.
“We certainly took it with a sense of humour and a grain of salt, and we played on that a little bit with our second set of invitations,” Cummings said.
“We had a laugh telling everyone that we accepted no responsibility for tornadoes, floods, earthquakes or alien invasions.”
The day went off without a hitch, but not before a meteor blazed across the night sky.
Thanks for waiting for me to get everything done before you destroy the world.– Jesse Cummings
“That happened right as we were just finishing setting up,” Cummings said.
“I was just thinking, ‘Well that’s fitting.’ As I looked up and this thing burning as bright as the sun is coming down. I thought, ‘Well perfect. Thanks for waiting for me to get everything done before you destroy the world.’
“And then we had a torrential downpour which annihilated one of our tents but luckily everyone had gone home at that point so we took that as a win.
“This will go down in infamy I think. But we have a great story to tell and it all worked out in the end.”
