Under smoky skies, Chicago couple exchanges vows at Sonoma County winery
As a wedding planner, Sara Sugrue has had to deal with her share of nuptial crises, but nothing may compare to trying to pull off a Chicago couple’s Sonoma County ceremony Saturday as the massive Kincade wildfire raged in the north end of the county.
That challenge was reflected in a photo of her newlywed clients, Curtis
and Katie Ferland, wearing face masks as they stood in a Wine Country vineyard framed by a smoke-filled sunset.
The photo of the couple has since gone viral, perhaps because it asks the question that photographer Karna Roa herself wondered: “Is this the ‘new normal’ for the California Wine Country in 2019?”
In reality, the newlyweds did not
exchange their vows while wearing the masks and only briefly posed wearing them, Sugrue explained. But the smoke from the Kincade Fire and PG&E’s planned public safety power outages created logistical headaches that are becoming all too common for Wine Country weddings that take place during fire season, added Sugrue, a planner for Orchard Avenue Events.
The Kincade Fire broke out in the mountains east of Geyserville on the night of Oct. 23 and began to quickly spread toward the Alexander Valley, Healdsburg and Windsor. As of Tuesday, it had consumed
75,000 acres and was 15% contained.
Fortunately, the couple’s dream destination wedding was taking place Saturday at the Chateau St. Jean Winery in Kenwood, which is about 25 miles south of where the fire started and outside the area where 90,000 people were ordered to evacuate Saturday.
Still, PG&E already had announced that it might cut power at the winery that weekend, and Sugrue already was trying to come up with a backup plan. Then the fire broke out. Her clients were, of course, concerned that their wedding would have to be canceled — and most of their 89 guests also were flying in from other parts of the country.
Smoke, which began billowing south from the fire,
was expected to choke the air on Saturday evening. “That is when we made the decision to move the reception indoors,” Sugrue said, to Chateau St. Jean’s barrel room, which has backup generators.
Saturday’s evacuations meant that some of Sugrue’s staff and vendors, who live in Healdsburg and Windsor, needed to be with their families. Sugrue said her husband, an emergency room nurse, had to deal with the evacuation at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Santa Rosa.
The planner and the couple decided to hold the ceremony on the winery’s lawn overlooking the vineyard. Sugrue secured air-filtration masks for any guest wishing to wear them. In the end, only one guest chose to wear a mask for
the 12-minute ceremony.
After the ceremony, Roa had Katie and Curtis Ferland — the bride in her long white gown and the groom in his suit — pose for photos in the vineyard. Sugrue, who said she loves gothic art, suggested a photo with the masks, seeing that the combination of smoke, sun and sky above the vineyard created a vivid background.
“They were a little reluctant, but rolled with it,” Sugrue said. “Our amazing photographer brought the vision alive.”
Roa added that the pose was inspired by Grant Wood’s iconic 1930 painting “American Gothic.”
After the photo, the couple headed into the barrel room for a sit-down dinner, dancing and cake-cutting. The power did not shut
down until 7 p.m. With the generators going, the reception continued until 10 p.m.
Sugrue was concerned that her clients had been the subject of some negative online comments suggesting that their photo was “snarky” or that they failed to appreciate the fire’s danger.
“We were not in an evacuation zone, nor a warning zone,” Sugrue said. “Our priority was to keep our couple, their guests, our vendors and employees safe.”
Atina Alkhas, a spokeswoman for Chateau St. Jean Winery, confirmed that the property was not directly impacted by the fire. Due to PG&E’s power shutdown, the winery has relied on generators and been closed intermittently, she said.
“We were thrilled the wedding was safely executed and the happy couple was able to have their beautiful wedding at our winery,” Alkhas said.
Sugrue said the couple have been through a lot, but they are currently enjoying their honeymoon in San Francisco. And she emphasized that neither she nor her clients took what was happening with the fire lightly.
“This is affecting all of us, as well as our couple who had to evacuate not once, but twice,” Sugrue said. “They have big love and care about our area and the people who live here. That’s why they chose to have their wedding here.”