February 15, 2010

Some girls daydream of their wedding day for years. They plan for months for that fairy tale wedding. However, for local residents Emily Garrahan, Amy Eastlack, and Kari Rothamel, dreams were nearly crushed.

We all remember the December "Holiday Punch" storm for its record snowfall totals, however Emily and Andrew Garrahan will remember the weekend for a different reason. It was their wedding day.

Sarah Cramer Shields, owner of Cramer Photo, was the wedding photographer for Emily and Andrew.

"At first I thought 'this is going to be magical, this is going to be the most memorable wedding ever.' That was Friday night when we had a couple of inches. Then Saturday morning I thought 'this could be bad.' We had no backup plan and this could be really awful," said Cramer.

The reception site canceled just hours before the wedding, yet 150 guests still showed up the day of the wedding.

"[Emily and Andrew] were so optimistic about the whole thing. They put on their boots, grabbed their umbrellas, and they were out on the Lawn doing snow angels. It was just about as perfect as you possibly could imagine," said Cramer.

Luckily for Emily and Andrew and all their guests, The Shebeen opened its doors to the entire group and cooked up a feast for the partying guests.

Amy and Courtney Eastlack married in the foothills of Denver. They rented a double-decker bus to shuttle guests from the ceremony to the mountainside reception, but the bus never made it to the party.

"We assumed that all of our party guests were on their way up the mountain. Time went on and people started whispering and knew something was wrong. They didn't want to tell us, but finally they told us the bus had broken down half way up the mountain," said Amy.

People chipped in to rescue the stranded guests, including an ambulance that picked up stragglers and, sirens blaring, dropped them off at the reception.

"The rest of the night was really fun, but we almost had a reception with no people at it," said Amy.

High school sweethearts Kari and Daniel Rothamel planned their New Orleans wedding for nearly two years. The big day arrived, but Kari's hairdresser did not.

"The maintenance man was in the cabin we were in," said Kari. "He was actually changing the bed linens and said 'hey, I have somebody who can do your hair.' The maintenance man actually came back into the cabin with a bag full of hair products and he said 'it's me!' "

Curling iron in hand, the repair man fixed Kari's hair for the wedding party.

"We were pretty relaxed about the whole thing now, we look back and laugh. I've got lots of pictures of the maintenance guy doing my hair. What other bride has that?"

Though the missing hairdresser crisis was averted, the site of the ceremony was double-booked, forcing Kari and Daniel to compete with a Boys Scouts' jamboree during the wedding.

Emily, Amy, and Kari had weddings that defied the dreams and failed to go according to plan. However, all three women say their weddings ended happily ever after nonetheless.