Shawna Davies
EF1
I know Jon has already posted, but I wanted to also say thanks to all of you for the overwhelming support and best wishes.
I actually came up w/ the idea in March when we got engaged. Jon asked what kind of wedding I wanted and I told him I did not want a formal wedding. Then (after a couple of drinks
) I said, "Since we met through storm chasing, why don't we tie the knot in front of a storm?"
I wasn't sure how we were going to pull this off (it's hard enough to chase w/out a wedding), but the only thing I did know was that I wanted it to be somewhere in Kansas since Jon and I met in Lawrence in 2002 and he's from Kansas (I was the only one in my family born in MO, the rest are from Pittsburg, KS) so we have a lot of ties in that state.
Lucky for us, you can file in any county in KS and get married in any county in KS. So, we had to wait for a storm....
Saw an opportunity last Thursday and rounded up the troops. We all met up in Salina and saw the storms blowing up from Manhattan to Topeka and blasted east. We had Doug Nelson lead the way as he is a rock star chaser and knows the roads there well. We got in front of an updraft on Hwy. 177 south of Manhattan near the scenic overlook, but saw it was coming too quickly with a bunch of cores behind it, so we blasted south. Couldn't find anywhere to set up so we core punched back up to our original position and arrived at the lookout spot right when the bulk of the cores had passed.
We originally wanted to get IN FRONT of a storm for the ceremony, but now I'm glad that we did it behind the storms under the back anvil. I even commented to Jon that morning that getting married somewhere in the flint hills would be the cherry on the sundae of our ceremony, but I'll take what I can get. (The flint hills are my favorite area of Kansas.)
To me, it was my dream wedding, I was looking at Jon, at the mammatus above him and the beautiful flint hills and it was so surreal that I started crying during the vows.
It was a LOT of work to pull this off (especially with a 9 car tag), but well worth it.
Ironic what Laura said, because between Rob Dale's wedding (congrats Rob, beautiful picture!) and our wedding, I can see a new tour group coming that will take people out to get married in front of a storm. We already have a name if anyone wants it...."Whirlwind Weddings" lol
We were worried this would come off "gimmicky", but this is truly what we wanted for our ceremony and I'm the happiest bride/storm chaser in the world!
Again, we both want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts and we wish all of you the very best life has to offer.
Shawna
I actually came up w/ the idea in March when we got engaged. Jon asked what kind of wedding I wanted and I told him I did not want a formal wedding. Then (after a couple of drinks
) I said, "Since we met through storm chasing, why don't we tie the knot in front of a storm?" I wasn't sure how we were going to pull this off (it's hard enough to chase w/out a wedding), but the only thing I did know was that I wanted it to be somewhere in Kansas since Jon and I met in Lawrence in 2002 and he's from Kansas (I was the only one in my family born in MO, the rest are from Pittsburg, KS) so we have a lot of ties in that state.
Lucky for us, you can file in any county in KS and get married in any county in KS. So, we had to wait for a storm....
Saw an opportunity last Thursday and rounded up the troops. We all met up in Salina and saw the storms blowing up from Manhattan to Topeka and blasted east. We had Doug Nelson lead the way as he is a rock star chaser and knows the roads there well. We got in front of an updraft on Hwy. 177 south of Manhattan near the scenic overlook, but saw it was coming too quickly with a bunch of cores behind it, so we blasted south. Couldn't find anywhere to set up so we core punched back up to our original position and arrived at the lookout spot right when the bulk of the cores had passed.
We originally wanted to get IN FRONT of a storm for the ceremony, but now I'm glad that we did it behind the storms under the back anvil. I even commented to Jon that morning that getting married somewhere in the flint hills would be the cherry on the sundae of our ceremony, but I'll take what I can get. (The flint hills are my favorite area of Kansas.)
To me, it was my dream wedding, I was looking at Jon, at the mammatus above him and the beautiful flint hills and it was so surreal that I started crying during the vows.
It was a LOT of work to pull this off (especially with a 9 car tag), but well worth it.
Ironic what Laura said, because between Rob Dale's wedding (congrats Rob, beautiful picture!) and our wedding, I can see a new tour group coming that will take people out to get married in front of a storm. We already have a name if anyone wants it...."Whirlwind Weddings" lol
We were worried this would come off "gimmicky", but this is truly what we wanted for our ceremony and I'm the happiest bride/storm chaser in the world!
Again, we both want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts and we wish all of you the very best life has to offer.
Shawna
