By: Erin Gartner, American Red Cross

Elina Day carefully stepped into her wedding dress. Her soon-to-be-husband was ready in his suit, making sure enough chairs and tables were set up for more than 100 people who would soon arrive for their wedding in the forested mountains at Squilchuck State Park.

“I’m doing my makeup. People are getting ready. We were completely unaware of what was going on,” Day said. “My mom pointed outside and said, ‘Is that smoke?’”

Day and her then-fiancé, Nathan Holterhoff, said the sky looked cloudy but nothing unusual for the picturesque area in central Washington state. The couple grew up nearby, so they were accustomed to summertime wildfires and said they chose an early July wedding date to hopefully avoid wildfire season.

The wedding party continued their prep, and the couple made their way outside for pre-ceremony photos. Everything was on schedule, Holterhoff said.

“Then all of our phones started blowing up with emergency alerts saying there was a Level 3 evacuation order for Squilchuck State Park,” Day said with a laugh. “We told the photographer, ‘OK, we’ve got 5 minutes!’”

After posing for a few outdoor photos, Day and Holterhoff went into overdrive: They needed to find another venue that could accommodate 115 people who would be arriving in just a few hours.

Holterhoff had connections at Stage Hills Church in nearby Wenatchee, but the church was also a wildfire evacuation center for the American Red Cross. Another problem: The couple had to dismantle their wedding décor and figure out a way to transport everything to a new site.

“We asked my uncle if he could pick up the arch we made for the ceremony. He had to drive through two Forest Service roadblocks, but he picked it up. He was the last one out of the park – they closed the gate behind him,” Holterhoff said.

“We started laughing about it when we got to our car,” Day added. “We told each other, ‘Well, this was unexpected.’”

Red Cross volunteers didn’t know how many people would seek shelter at the evacuation center, which was set up in one of the church’s meeting rooms. But they welcomed the wedding party with open arms.

The couple began making about 80 calls to their guests to notify them of the venue change. They also delayed the ceremony by an hour to give everyone time to adjust – including some family members who had to evacuate from their own homes in the area. Red Cross volunteers and staff helped the church set up tables, offered linens, and worked to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible.

“We helped direct traffic. If people coming in were dressed well, we’d say, ‘Oh, you go that way,’” said Kari Strain, a Senior Volunteer Recruitment Specialist at the Red Cross. “The couple were really, really good about it. They were just great.”

“There were a lot of people I didn’t recognize, and I know a lot of the Red Cross volunteers were members of the church,” Holterhoff said. “So they were doing a lot of duel duty, setting up stuff for the Red Cross and for us.”

Day and Holterhoff exchanged vows in front of a full church of family and friends – and a few new friends from the church and Red Cross. They also now have an unusual story of how they officially became Elina and Nathan Day-Holterhoff.

“We had a beautiful ceremony. I’m glad the day went well,” she said. Her husband quickly added: “Yeah, it was awesome.”