For Better and for Worse

[yzerfan]

Story from the Northwest Florida Daily News

Couple walk down an aisle of sand and debris to tie the knot.
By WENDY VICTORA Daily News Staff Writer


A dozen wedding guests, some dressed in work boots and stained T-shirts, gathered on the sidewalk in front of The Landing in Fort Walton Beach.
Yellow police tape surrounded the entire park, where Hurricane Ivan had torn up docks, downed trees, strewn debris and impaled a sailboat on a post.
That didn’t stop the bride and groom, who walked under the police tape like it was a balloon arch.
"We got the permit," said the bride, Kelly McIntosh. "We paid our $26.50."
The guests were a jovial group of wisecracking men and a trio of women wearing brightly colored feather boas and plastic Mardi Gras hats.
"We’re going to throw oak leaves, pine straw and sand," joked Ken Oliver.
The bride and groom, Kelly McIntosh and Chris Aldrich of Shalimar, wore matching white T-shirts with the words BRIDE and GROOM ironed on their chests.
He wore running shoes. She wore flip-flops.
"It’s the National Lampoon wedding," Aldrich joked.
His parents, who live in Navarre, made it. Her parents, who were in Tampa, had hoped to listen via cell phone, but that plan was discarded.
"We’ve been disconnected a lot," McIntosh said.
The couple decided to stick with their date and location, though they plan to have a formal wedding in the next few months.
"We’re going to have the real thing because I didn’t spend all that money on a dress for nothing," the bride said.
Friends stood in to photograph and videotape the wedding, which was performed by the groom’s former employer, MaryAnn Purvis, who is a notary public.
She gave up her first chance to glimpse her home on Okaloosa Island in order to marry the couple. The island was opened Saturday afternoon to residents who wanted to survey the damage to their homes.
"My husband’s on the island right now," she said. "I said, ‘Don’t even leave me a message on my cell phone until after the wedding.’
"I can wait a little longer."
There was some small debate on the sidewalk before the bride and groom decided to walk under the tape and say their vows in the gazebo, as planned.
It was apparently undamaged, though surrounded by a high-tide debris line that included a bicycle tire, paint can and pieces of dock.
There were some logistical problems as the couple struggled to find a spot with a more scenic background than a barge floating in the Santa Rosa Sound.
They stared into each other’s eyes and held hands as they said their vows, which they wrote themselves.
Then, they exchanged rings and a long kiss to applause and wisecracks from three friends who had come straight from moving a tree off of a house.
Their honeymoon was postponed and replaced by other plans.
"We’ve invited people over because a lot of people don’t have power and we do," she said.
Their wedding was one of at least two in the area that took place Saturday, despite the extreme conditions imposed by the aftermath of the hurricane.
Tami Thomas and Joshua Wood got married in Niceville Saturday afternoon in the back yard of a home that didn’t have power.
Neighbors provided the food, according to the groom’s sister, Courtney Wood.
"We’ve worked hard, we have everything ready and we’re going for it," she said.


• Staff Writer Wendy Victora can be reached at 863-1111, Ext. 478, or
wendyv@nwfdailynews.com