The Wedding that Almost Wasn't

No, this was not an issue of cold feet, but a cat 5 hurricane that roared through the Caribbean and eventually made landfall in Florida 3 days before their Destination Wedding. But as the Shakespeare quote goes, "All's Well that Ends Well."

In my last blog post, I went into all the craziness that occurred right before we were supposed to leave for the Dominican Republic. At the time of the post, none of us, bride and groom included, were 100% sure whether the flights would still go to our destination: Punta Cana. Since so many flights were cancelled, about 20 of the wedding guests were all rescheduled onto our friday flight to the Dominican.

We boarded the plane and then something happened that I have never seen before.

The captain comes out of the cockpit with an Ipad and starts to spill his battle plans on Hurricane Irma. At this point, Irma was just north of the tip of Cuba. The captain starts his presentation to the whole plane by trying to show us the flight path that will take us skirting the edge of the hurricane, flying between cloud layers and making a hard left turn. He is not on the intercom, but speaking as loud as possible so the people in the back can see. The plane is silent, everyone is paying attention and leaning out in the aisle to see. He let us know that he was a military pilot and he'd get us there safe. I wondered.....I've never seen any pilot come out and do a flight path presentation, off intercom. Unusual, yes....but why??

Flying by Hurricane Irma, somewhere past Cuba

Long story short, the flight was unremarkable and easy. We landed without issue and got prepared for the wedding the next day. There was some landscaping damage to parts of the resort, but it was very minimal. The wedding was amazing...1,600+ pictures and videos later.

See for yourself. Hover over the image below to scroll.