When Fire Threatened Their Wedding, The Community Stepped Up
After the Beehive fire forced Nathan and Elina Day-Holterhoff to evacuate their wedding site, friends, family and total strangers pitched in to save the ceremony
When Elina and Nathan Day-Holterhoff arrived at Squilchuck State Park on July 6 on the morning of their wedding day, they didn’t know that soon a fire about three miles away would force them to evacuate and find a new place to marry.
“We got up to Squilchuck about 10 am Saturday and were setting up,” Elina said. “We did not know there was a fire at all.”
The couple had planned to get married at the state park at 4 p.m. and about 125 people had RSVP’d to join them for their special day.
But in the early afternoon things started going sideways – fast.
About 1:30 the first evacuation notice, a Level 1 notice, came in. So they checked in with a park ranger. He said they didn’t have to leave until a Level 3 notice was declared.
A Level 3 notice means get out now, and not long after that it came in, so the couple beat a hasty retreat.
“It was basically a mad dash to get everything into the car,” she said.
They snapped a few photos before piling into vehicles and fleeing the scene – leaving behind the tables and chairs they had set up as well as a decorative arch they had borrowed for the ceremony.
At a time when some folks might blow up, shut down or start having panic attacks, Elina and Nathan took things in stride.
“We got the evac and we started laughing,” she said.
So they focused on the problem at hand and what their next moves were going to be.
“Nothing was in our control so we just went with the flow,” she said. “None of us were stressed about it.”
As they left the wedding venue-turned-natural-disaster area, their phones started blowing up.
“I had a lot of people text me when they found out,” Nathan said.
Originally they were going to tell people to meet them at Walla Walla Point Park, where they would have the ceremony as planned. But a friend and member of the wedding party is a staff member at Sage Hills Church, which was also the Red Cross evacuation and aid station for the fire, and after making a couple of calls they decided to have it there.
Elina said all of Sage Hills’ maintenance crew was already invited to the wedding, so they had started setting up before she and Nathan arrived. A few Red Cross volunteers pitched in to help set up as well.
“It coincided with it being a Red Cross shelter, which is even funnier,” he said. “I think a few people walked over to help the maintenance crew set up. I didn’t even know who they were so I assumed they were Red Cross.”
Nathan and Elina actually met at Sage Hills at youth group, so the church is a part of their personal history.
“We met at Sage Hills,” she said. “It was a full circle moment.”
Nathan said that Sage Hills has always been great to his family, and after his father passed away Pastor Mike Wilson and church leaders offered the space for his celebration of life ceremony free of charge.
“It’s just an amazing community,” Elina said. “They really really pull together to support each other.”
In the end, the couple got married only an hour behind schedule and Elina said they could have started the ceremony at 4 but they wanted to give folks more time in case they were already on their way to Squilchuck.
Now the couple is currently on their honeymoon in Victoria, B.C. and when I spoke to them on the phone they said they’re glad it all worked out. Nathan did note how tired everyone was after the day’s events.
“I can’t tell you how exhausted we were,” he said. “We set up two weddings and took down one.”
The couple also wanted to share their appreciation for the park rangers who helped them every step of the way.
You can listen to my interview with Elina and Nathan here:
There’s still no official word from fire officials about what they suspect started the Beehive Fire.