It wasn’t easy to find a silver lining in the storm that forced a young couple to reschedule their barrier island wedding nearly six months ago.
Even the bride’s mother conceded, “I had so much enthusiasm for October – and having to postpone the wedding because of Hurricane Matthew was such a letdown – that it was hard to get excited this time, at least until the last two weeks.”
But there was a bright spot: The delay gave Vero Beach native Natalie Collins and her then-fiance, Scott Myers, the time they needed to save up for a honeymoon on Central America’s east coast.
“If they had gotten married in October, they weren’t going to have a real honeymoon,” said Collins’ mother, Debbie, who oversaw the rescheduling of the wedding from Oct. 8 to this past Friday. “They were just going to spend a week at our house in Islamorada.
“Now, they’re going to Belize.”
And they’ll take with them fresh memories of their wedding festivities, which included a meet-and-greet Wednesday at the Orchid Island Brewery, rehearsal dinner Thursday at the Grand Harbor Beach Club and a Friday they’ll never forget.
Collins and Myers finally were married at Holy Cross Catholic Church – 167 days after their initial wedding date – then celebrated with family and friends at a reception the Quail Valley River Club.
“It was everything I hoped it would be, and even better,” said Collins, who grew up in Castaway Cove, where her parents still reside, and moved to Wilmington, N.C., after graduating from East Carolina University. “It all worked out the way we wanted.
“When we first got engaged, we talked about a spring wedding on a Friday, but we thought it would work out better for everybody if we did it in October,” she added. “We planned for a year and never thought about a hurricane.
“As it turned out, there was no way we could’ve done it in October, and we ended up with the spring wedding we originally talked about.”
As Hurricane Matthew moved toward Florida’s Treasure Coast, it was projected to hit Vero Beach as a Category 4 storm, eventually prompting mandatory evacuation of the island.
Though Matthew didn’t do as much damage as feared and Oct. 8 brought sunny skies to the area, the storm did cause power outages throughout the region and, with many major airports closed along the southeast coast of the U.S., wreaked havoc on travel.
Three days before their scheduled wedding, the couple postponed the event and drove back to Wilmington.
“As you can imagine, Natalie was feeling down,” her mother said. “Even though she knew they really didn’t have a choice, postponing the wedding was heartbreaking for her – and having to attend a bunch of weddings afterward made it even tougher.
“A lot of their friends were getting married, and Scott was in the wedding parties,” she added. “They had weddings in October, November and December, and then another one in February. That wasn’t easy.
“They were supposed to already be married.”
Collins admitted that it was “a little rough” going to those weddings, especially the one in October, but she said the holiday season provided a distraction. By January, she was focused on her wedding again.
“January and February did seem to go by slowly,” she said, “but once we got to March, it got exciting again.”
As for the logistics of rescheduling the wedding, the most difficult part was finding an open date that worked for the church, Quail Valley, the band, photographer and other vendors.
“In some ways, it was easier the second time because we already had all the contacts,” said the bride’s father, Tom, a former John’s Island tennis director who now owns the Tom Collins Insurance Agency. “Once we had the right date, everything fell into place.”
Well, almost everything.
Early Thursday afternoon, the skies darkened and hail pelted Vero Beach. Later, as the wedding party attended the rehearsal dinner, sometimes-heavy rain was accompanied by strong, gusting winds.
“For a while,” the bride’s father said, “we thought Matthew was chasing us.”
Said the bride’s mother: “My first thought was, ‘Oh, my God, how much can these kids take?’ But it didn’t bother them at all. I guess they figured they’d already been through a hurricane, so . . .”
So what’s a little more wind and rain.
“The hurricane will always be a part of our story,” Collins said, “but what we’ll remember most is this weekend and especially our wedding day.”
As fate would have it, Collins’ sister, Katharine, who lives in Atlanta, is engaged and planning to get married in Vero Beach next year – and she’s taking no chances with hurricane season.
She and her fiancé want a March wedding, too.
