09/29/2025
Three days before Hurricane Helene hit, my husband told me I should go ahead and charge all the batteries for my wedding that weekend, which started me thinking I need to get prepared for anything that might happen so I was ready to make it to the wedding no matter what. The drive to be there for couples on their wedding day and the urgency to never let anyone down when you’re a wedding professional is incredibly strong. In some way, the focus to make sure I found a way to be there for the wedding, made it difficult to see what was happening around me. The morning after Helene hit, I drove over the westgate bridge toward east Asheville, and to my right saw the River Arts district and all the buildings covered in flood water up the roof lines of buildings, the flooding was like looking out across a huge river in and of itself. I drove ahead to the hospital, because I thought that would be one place that would have electricity and wifi. I sat in the lobby of Mission Hospital and was lucky to check my email to retrieve the airbnb address for .carly
I asked my husband to drive there with me because I was afraid to go by myself. When I arrived, I was incredibly relieved when everyone was glad to see me. I felt like a hero and we made plans for me to return the next day to photograph the wedding at the airbnb. So cut off from information it was hard to balance grasping what had happened and what I was also trying to do.The next day I was able to photograph .carly wedding for two hours and as I was leaving, everyone there departed at the same time for South Carolina and other out of state locations.
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