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Couple Forces Friends To Attend Florida Wedding Despite Hurricane Matthew

by Alexandra Svokos
Facebook / REUTERS

A little Category 3 hurricane and a president-declared state of emergency aren't going to stop Jaime Gurnavage and Ryan Gordon from getting married.

The couple scheduled their wedding for Saturday, October 8. They planned out what should have been a beautiful beach wedding at the Ocean Landing Resort in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

But as anyone who's ever been involved with a wedding knows, you can't prepare for every wrench in your plans.

And for Gurnavage and Gordon, that wrench just so happens to be the deadly Hurricane Matthew.

Over 570 people were killed in Haiti because of the storm, which was then a Category 4. It began making landfall in Florida at the end of this week, where it weakened to a Category 3.

100 guests were supposed to attend the wedding of Gurnavage and Gordon on Saturday, including 30 people from outside of Florida. Only about 15 of those 30 made it to Florida.

The out-of-staters evacuated with the soon-to-be-married couple to the Orlando area when the storm changed its path and headed toward central Florida.

The couple doesn't know what the state of the Ocean Landing Resort will be on Saturday, but they're determined to have the wedding no matter what.

Gurnavage told Florida Today,

We plan on still having some type of ceremony. Whatever kind of ceremony that may be.

She explained they had picked the 8th of October for an emotional reason.

We picked the 8th because the No. 8, when you set it on the side, it's the infinity symbol.

She added that all of the items for the wedding were already engraved with the date October 8, so they will do whatever it takes to get married on that date.

Planning a wedding takes a ton of work, and I can't imagine what the couple is going through -- emotionally, physically and financially -- now that the hurricane is messing with those plans.

Of course, with this hurricane, there are a lot more serious issues to worry about than wedding plans getting ruined. But at least we know that even in the middle of a natural disaster, love persists.

Citations: CNBC, Florida Today, Reuters