Couple proceeds with wedding in P.E.I. amid storm chaos from Fiona

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CHARLOTTETOWN — Naomi and Tyler Wheeler have lived by means of a pandemic, wildfires, warmth waves, minor earthquakes and most lately a post-tropical storm that laid waste to large swaths of Atlantic Canada.

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As the previous hurricane Fiona pounded Prince Edward Island on Saturday, devastating a lot of the province, the couple pledged to climate storms – and some other apocalyptic occasions life sends their means – collectively.

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In entrance of simply 16 friends, down from the 85 they’d hoped to entertain, the Wheelers professed their love for one another and exchanged rings on the Rodd Charlottetown lodge within the capital metropolis’s downtown core.

The couple formally tied the knot in Halifax in 2017 in a small ceremony and determined to have a celebration later.

“We tried to schedule it thrice,” Naomi Wheeler mentioned with fun. “After which COVID saved getting in the best way. After all, a hurricane occurs once we reschedule.”

The couple dwell within the bride’s California dwelling city, whereas the groom hails from Montague, P.E.I. They wished to have a celebration for Tyler Wheeler’s household and different buddies who wouldn’t be capable to make it to Los Angeles.

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They landed in Charlottetown Wednesday when Fiona was churning its means by means of southern waters. However because the storm approached Canada and warnings grew stringent, their buddies cancelled. The couple was disillusioned however understood. They wished their family and friends protected.

“There was the entire phases of grief about it,” Tyler Wheeler mentioned. “We’re simply type of in disbelief that this might occur.”

The couple then merely determined to glide, mentioned the bride.

“The stream is only a hurricane.”

The marriage was delayed by an hour-and-a-half whereas the officiant, Sarah Haberl, and the groom helped patch up a member of the family’s roof. The Wheelers first met as college students at a 2013 get together in Montreal. Later that night, the pair acknowledged one another at a membership the place that they had gone to behave as “wing individuals” for buddies.

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“We had been horrible wing individuals,” mentioned the bride.

9 years later, as Fiona raged, the couple lastly celebrated their love and friendship with their closest buddies in a storm-adapted ceremony they mentioned was sprinkled with private touches.

The room was lit with 30 candles and three iPhone flashlights. The invocation and vows had been learn by candlelight and a headlamp, Haberl mentioned.

The ceremony included a poem, just a little little bit of the childhood of the couple and had some “lovey-dovey issues,” she mentioned.

The rings the Wheelers ultimately exchanged had been first handed across the room so friends may supply a blessing on them.

The raspberry and vanilla swirl cake was topped with contemporary flowers and made by the groom’s sister-in-law.

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One of many first songs partygoers danced to was the well-known sea shanty ‘Barrett’s Privateers.’

“We needed to get just a little little bit of Nova Scotia in there,” the groom mentioned.

Amid the celebration, the couple mentioned there was a contact of unhappiness as a result of the groom’s grandparents couldn’t attend.

Reflecting on their ceremony and the previous few whirlwind days, the bride mentioned they didn’t understand how briskly and the way dangerous issues may get with the climate. However Naomi Wheeler mentioned she additionally feels overwhelmed by the quantity of assist she received and the way everybody got here collectively.

“I feel we embraced it. It was a beautiful, pretty, cozy, intimate night,” she mentioned. “I really feel very liked.”