Reception Locations

Brides

hollywood types often say a couple in a romantic movie “met cute.” Kelli Michaelson and Nik Braese can say they “met wet.” In fact, they were both stuck in a Florida hotel, without light or electricity, hunkering down as Hurricane Katrina passed over Miami.
    Both were new employees of a company that scheduled a conference during hurricane season because the hotel rates were reduced, Kelli recalled. Even so, they were each excited to be traveling as part of their new jobs.

Return to Cape Fear Trends index

MARRIED:

   Oct. 16, 2009

   Bald Head Island

Wedding day rain was a reminder of their soggy meeting

Photo by Anne McGowan

Ceremony: Bald Head Island Chapel
Photographer: Anne McGowan

    It was just their luck that, on Aug. 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore in south Florida. Though only a Category 1 at this stage — well before it devastated the Louisiana and Mississipi Gulf Coast — the storm still had enough punch to knock out power to much of the hotel.
    Kelli’s room was dark, she explained, and she had to take a cold shower lit only by a flashlight. “I couldn’t dry my hair or iron my shirt,” and she went to the front desk to ask about where she could find a working electrical outlet. “Nik was there asking the same question. We decided to walk to the correct room together, and hit it off from
there — despite my probably haggard appearance.”
    After returning to their homes and jobs, the two stayed in touch by email and went to dinner a couple of times during company meetings in Chicago, “Until I visited him about six months later. The rest is history.”
    After their Bald Head Island wedding, the couple reside just outside Cincinnati.