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Wildfire May Destroy Wedding Plans

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ
,
AP
posted: 5 HOURS 1 MINUTE AGO
comments: 18
filed under: National News, Wildfire News
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LOS ANGELES (May 10) -- Bride-to-be Carrie Beers has been planning to hold her intimate wedding among winding staircases, terraced gardens and 13 acres of avocado orchards at a Spanish-style villa tucked into a Santa Barbara canyon.
Now the New Yorker is worried her West Coast wedding site won't survive a raging, 8,600-acre wildfire that has ravaged at least 80 other homes.
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Beers and her fiance have been following the Santa Barbara County fire online and waiting for updates from their wedding coordinator in hopes the villa hasn't turned into a smoldering pile of stucco.
"At this point I'm trying to stay positive," said Beers, whose fiance rented the estate from friends for the wedding this summer. "We heard from them yesterday afternoon and everything was OK — then it got dangerously close last night."
The fire, which was 30 percent contained by Saturday, has displaced thousands of families and upended plans for couples wanting to wed. Many brides are worried their elaborate designs for a resplendent weekend wedding — many taking a year to plan and costing in upward of $20,000 — will go up in flames.
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Santa Barbara has long been one of the country's top wedding destinations with its picturesque wineries, mansions and missions tucked between the Pacific Ocean and San Ynez mountains. These features and the sunny weather lends itself to a long wedding season that runs from March to October, wedding planners say.
This stretch of coastline nicknamed the American Riviera has hosted plenty of high-profile events over the years, including Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh's wedding and John and Jackie Kennedy's honeymoon. More recently, the weddings of Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry and Jim Carrey were held in this tony city.
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Wedding planners and workers at wedding sites said they've been busy fielding calls all week from concerned brides and grooms. Chasen Thibeault, with The Inn of the Spanish Garden, said the hotel is now being used as a staging area for the Fire Department, and the courtyard and pool are filled with ash.
Thibeault said he warned a groom scheduled to be married Saturday at the hotel that he would be "breathing in ash" and enjoying "beautiful, ominous sunsets."
While some businesses reported a few customers having second thoughts about a Santa Barbara wedding, venues farther from the fire have seen business pick up.
Patricia Dall'Armi with the Rose Story Farm in nearby Carpenteria, said Friday she had to turn down a bride desperately searching for a place that would hold her 200-person wedding for Saturday. The popular site boasts peacocks strolling through lush grounds blooming with roses and lavender.
"If she had 80 people we could've helped her right away but not 200," Dall'Armi said.
While many future newlyweds remained concerned, Los Angeles resident Eric Rosen said the fires are providing an interesting backdrop for what will likely be a much more memorable occasion. He and his bride-to-be are getting married this weekend at the Firestone Vineyard in the San Ynez Valley, which has so far been safe from the fire.
"I've just been telling the wedding coordinator that I'm going to move forward with this until the police and fire tell me I can't go there," he said.
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Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-05-09 12:03:48
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(18)
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1 - 10

Oceanluver59

07:30 PMMay 10 2009

Why bother, they will be divorced in 6 mo, or one of them will kill the other one!

AVG RATING:
(2)

J9Neil

07:23 PMMay 10 2009

Go to the courthouse. Get married. Come home and have hot dogs on the grill and beer with your friends. Tell the wedding coordinator to bring the food and cake to those who are breaking their asses trying to save peoples homes and lives.

AVG RATING:
(2)

Mgrauman

06:23 PMMay 10 2009

Thanks AOL. You print the best news. Now I can have a happy bowel movement knowing the cow, Carrie Beers, didn't kick over the lantern that started this fire.

AVG RATING:
(0)

LOVESBIRDS

05:08 PMMay 10 2009

Sorry- just can't relate a lost wedding site to lost homes full of life times of keep sakes.

AVG RATING:
(0)

SEBAN

04:59 PMMay 10 2009

At least they can get married by law in the State of California. It must be Heaven's wrath for the passage of Proposition 8. WAAAAH, WAAAH, CRY me a river! an "activist" poster.

AVG RATING:
(3)

SakismomIam

04:42 PMMay 10 2009

Countess Michele! You said it best!If I was the bride, instead of being selfish, I'd invite the firefighters and some families who were left without homes to my wedding for food and to get their minds off their problems.I laugh and watch Platinum Weddings, what a joke. $100,000 wedding rings give me a break.

AVG RATING:
(6)

Ccdae5

04:23 PMMay 10 2009

We backward folks in the Midwest figured out long ago that we shouldn't built our homes in areas that are prone to flooding. In fact there are laws against it in many places. When will the people in Southern California finally figure out that they shouldn't build their homes in tinder dry woods that are prone to BURN EVERY YEAR ???????? !!!!!!!!!!! I feel badly for those effected but come on, either clean out the underbrush or don't live there!

AVG RATING:
(9)

CountessMichele

03:40 PMMay 10 2009

This is why people in this world are so screwed up...they're so totally selfish and narcissistic!

AVG RATING:
(11)

Beachlife2

03:06 PMMay 10 2009

For those of you who have lost your homes in the fire, feel free to attend this brides wedding reception....because your the ones who deserve it.

AVG RATING:
(10)

Beachlife2

03:04 PMMay 10 2009

What a BRIDEZILLA!............selfish....selfish....

AVG RATING:
(11)

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