14 Feb Blizzard Wedding
With 3 major snowstorms in 3 weeks and another due this weekend (which is also Valentine’s Day weekend), it got me wondering about brides who have been planning winter weddings. While winter conditions can certainly be a challenge, they can also offer great opportunity! In searching for recent examples of winter (and more appropriately snow) weddings, I found a great story and videos of Debra and Alex from Minnesota.
Apparently, blizzard weddings run in Debra’s family, so her own shouldn’t have been a surprise. Her parents married during the longest consecutive snowfall in Minnesota history, and her grandparents married during one of the biggest blizzards in Minnesota history.
Debra wanted a winter wedding as well, and on top of that, she wanted to marry on a Saturday night. In Jewish tradition, marriages can’t be held on Shabbat, observed from sundown on Friday night to sundown on Saturday night. December 11th happened to be the shortest day (and earliest sundown) of the year, so Debra planned her wedding for that night, hoping for a little snow. She got quite a bit more than that.
While pictures were underway, trouble was brewing the synagogue. The parking lot was so full of snow that no one could get to the building to open it; for 20 minutes it seemed likely there would be no wedding. Luckily for Debra, her bridesmaid—a corporate building manager—called some friends in the snowplow business and saved the day.
In the end, three-hundred-and-ten guests braved one of the worst blizzards in Minnesota history to attend Debra and Alex Arbit’s wedding and many had heroic blizzard stories of their own. Friends who recently moved to Minnesota from Miami shoveled their rental car out of a snowbank with only a baking sheet. Another couple enlisted a passing plow to push their car out of their driveway, causing significant damage to the rear end of their expensive car, all to make it to the wedding on time.
Snow even followed Debra to her Italian honeymoon. Rome saw the biggest storm in 30 years with 9 inches, which shut down the autostrada, a main Italian highway, and turned Debra’s three-hour drive to Tuscany into a 14-hour crawl. And through it all? “Our sense of humor has prevailed,” she says.
To read the entire story from Minnesota Bride, click on the link below and be sure to check out both their ‘Save the Date’ and wedding day videos!
http://mnbride.com/reception-sites/white-out-blizzard-weddings
– Jamie
Debra + Alex : Stop Motion Save The Date from Hello Sunshine Films on Vimeo.
Alex + Debra // The Depot, Minneapolis from capture studios on Vimeo.