perfect Strangers raided Her wedding – and she couldn’t be happier.
Megan Archard’s dream of saying “I do” in Asheville, North Carolina was almost ruined by Hurricanes Helen and Milton.
But thankfully, 50 strangers showed up to the event to help save her big day when invited guests couldn’t attend.
“Believe it or not, we didn’t know half the people there,” Archard told Queen City News“Maybe it wasn’t the day I imagined – but it was perfect.”
Archard and her husband Eric tied the knot on October 13 – just two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville.
The couple were originally scheduled to get married in October last year, but postponed the wedding after it was revealed they were expecting their first child.
After Helene – a Category 4 hurricane that caused at least 228 deaths and approximately $88 billion in damage – Archard believed she would have to move on with her marriage once again.
“It was like a roller coaster of emotions,” the mother of one explained. “You know, on the one hand, obviously, we’ve been planning this wedding for two years and we definitely wanted this to happen, and on the other hand…what’s the right thing to do morally?”
“Finally, after two years, it was just a marriage for me,” he said. “Whether that happened or not, I just wanted to make sure my sellers were OK.”
Orchard’s vendors insisted that the wedding should go ahead.
“That was kind of a mental turning point for me,” the bride declared.
But before she was ready to walk down the aisle, another natural disaster struck.
Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on October 9 – four days before Orchard’s ceremony.
The Category 3 hurricane prevented dozens of the 100 invited guests from flying from Florida to North Carolina for the couple’s big day.
“We were doing OK and then we hit this mental hurdle,” Archard said. “We were like, ‘What’s going on?'” Archard said. “Then we came up with the idea of inviting strangers to come to the wedding.”
Instead of canceling the ceremony, a crafty Archard decides to invite 50 strangers from his mother’s work to fill the venue.
Those strangers were actually health care heroes from Asheville’s Mission Hospital, where Archard’s mother works as a nurse. At the time, the bride’s mother and her co-workers had been working around the clock for more than two weeks to care for people in the aftermath of Hurricane Helen.
“It’s been a very challenging month,” said nurse Paige Younkin, who jumped at the chance to attend Archard’s wedding without seeing it, along with several dozen of her colleagues.
“It was great,” Younkin said.
“Not only were we able to socialize, dress up, see each other and have fun,” she said. “But [we] Had the opportunity to spend some very happy moments celebrating together [the bride and groom],
And unlike most brides, who deal with strangers – or wedding attendees Get free grub and alcohol – Like the nuisance at their weddings, Archard treated Younkin and his co-workers like Tinseltown royalty.
“We called them Hollywood extras,” the newlyweds said. “That was his nickname the whole night.”
“I’ll go up and say, ‘You must be a Hollywood extra. I’m Megan, nice to meet you,'” continued Archard, who credited the unknowns for keeping the party going.
“It just stayed light and fun,” she said happily. “He never left the dance floor.”
“It was very encouraging.”
