Slight twist to this post: about making my wedding (which involved a few flights and a hurricane) as opposed to just one flight...

So last August I got married at a great campground in Utah. My wife and I were stressing out for two weeks prior to the flight, as Hurricane Lane was bearing down on the Hawaiian islands, where we live. We were set to depart on a Wednesday night red eye to Vegas via SFO, then rent a car and drive to Duck Creek. Monday we showed up to school (we're both teachers) and were greeted with an email from our boss to prepare for a school shut down due to the hurricane. Later that day the district office ended up cancelling school for us from Wednesday through Friday, since our school was a designated community shelter for the storm.

We were super stressed out about things, as we had everything booked and all of our friends were going to be in Utah...without us. As far as weddings go we weren't spending a lot (next to nothing actually), so the concern wasn't necessarily mission out on money, more the fact that we would be missing our wedding. We decided to call in sick (principal approved, given the circumstances), got some substitutes for Tuesday, and started calling AS to try to get an earlier flight. Unfortunately, all the tourists on the island had a similar idea, and there were ZERO flights available.

Since we had Tuesday off already, we decided to catch a bus down to the airport to camp out in hopes that space would open on a flight...it didn't. We made our case to the Alaska people, and they were sympathetic but there was nothing they could do. We tried looking at other airlines, but we were way behind on that, so nothing came up. Wednesday came and went in a similar fashion and we were still out of luck. My sister and her boyfriend flew out on Hawaiian Wednesday, but even though they tried to get Hawaiian to let us take their place on the flight, they were told that wasn't how it works.

Meanwhile we were tracking the storm on NOAA and listening to all of the local stations declaring that "This was the big one" and everyone should be prepared. Poop. Wednesday brought with it news that airlines were beginning to cancel flights, starting on Friday and Saturday when the storms were supposed to hit. I called my brother and gave him instructions to purchase the food and booze we were planning to and go ahead and throw a huge rager in our honor should we miss our wedding. I hung up and went outside and boarded up our windows and battened down the hatches. Then I drank half a bottle of whiskey, decided it was probably not a good idea to drink the other half, and went to bed

Thursday we headed down to the airport early, and waited. And waited. And watched as more flight cancellations were announced. Finally we were able to check in...only to be told that there was a mechanical delay on the aircraft. $4!#! We were able to get a reroute from our original itinerary through Portland, then down to California, then to Vegas, but that put us behind schedule a bit, and making the run to the Marriage license office before it closed on Friday was going to be iffy. We decided to roll the dice and go with it...which was lucky because that ended up being one of (if not the last, I'm not sure) flight out of the airport before they shut down for the hurricane.

Long story long, we got to Utah in time to miss the marriage license office but in time to get married and party. Must've lost a few years of my life due to stressing out but it all worked out in the end.