It was 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 12, and Hilary Wagner was getting choked up. She and her fiancé, Tyler Train, were driving to Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Beach, Calif., where they’d be scouting the oceanside resort for their upcoming nuptials. Ms. Wagner’s tears might have been happy ones if she and Mr. Train were making the trip willingly rather than under duress. But the pair, both 28, were dealing with the unthinkable: Less than a week ahead of their Nov. 17 wedding, they learned that their original venue, Saddlerock Ranch vineyard in Malibu, Calif., had been severely damaged in the Woolsey Fire, one of several violent infernos currently ravaging parts of the state.
“We couldn’t get any real-time information about venues that had burned down,” Ms. Wagner said. “Last Friday we stayed up all night crying, but we kept holding out hope. We thought maybe Saddlerock was spared.”
Sunday morning brought bad news directly from Saddlerock Ranch. It was closed, and it would stay that way. The revelation left them reeling, but Ms. Wagner and Mr. Train had 125 guests to think about. Half were traveling to California for the event from New York, Florida and their home state of Texas. And so they changed course. “Once we got confirmation that Saddlerock burned down,” Ms. Wagner said, “I started calling and emailing venues. I even put friends and family on it.”
Hilary Wagner and her fiancé, Tyler Train, during their engagement photo shoot. The couple’s original wedding site, Saddlerock Ranch vineyard in Malibu, Calif., was closed because of the wildfires.CreditTommy Lu/BELLASPOSA Bridal and Photography
Ms. Wagner, an account director for Ibex Global, and Mr. Train, an associate attorney at Ferguson Case Orr Paterson, are among dozens of couples who’ve had to cram a year’s worth of wedding planning into the span of a week because of an especially devastating California wildfire season. As of Thursday, the Woolsey Fire had been proclaimed the largest on record in Los Angeles County, with the blaze charring more than 97,000 acres and killing at least three people. An estimated 250,000 Angelenos have been evacuated, and the flames are 53 percent contained. (The Camp Fire, the largest and deadliest in the state’s history, has devastated Northern California, with at least 56 people killed as of Thursday and about 200 still missing.)
Among the 57,000 structures in the line of the Woolsey Fire, many were set to host wedding celebrations in the coming weeks, including the Lodge at Malibou Lake in Agoura Hills, Calif.
“By 7 a.m. on Friday morning, my phone was blowing up,” said Cordelia Culver, the Lodge managing director and caterer. “There was a huge amount of tension, not knowing whether our venue was being burned to the ground or not.” Ultimately the structure was spared, but an evacuation forced Ms. Culver to cancel the next day’s event. “At first you’re like, ‘Well, maybe we’ll be able to have a wedding,’” she said. “Then you just have to make the call that clearly that’s not going to happen.”
Ms. Culver, 44, took to social media in the hope of finding a replacement venue for the Lodge’s Nov. 10 client, which is when she teamed with Jessica Carrillo, the owner of Art and Soul Events in West Los Angeles and an administrator in the wedding-themed Facebook group “Something Borrowed, Something New.”
The entrance to Malibou Lake in Agoura Hills, Calif. The structure was spared in the fires, but some events were cancelled.CreditCordelia Culver
Together they along with others in the events community became a de facto crisis response team, acting fast to compile a living document of bookable venues and vendors and make it available to the group’s nearly 8,000 members. “There were so many things being retweeted that weren’t true about which venues are standing and which ones aren’t,” Ms. Carrillo, 36, said. “I don’t know if there are any sort of emergency help vendors, but if you’re one of those couples who didn’t hire a wedding planner, you’re at a complete loss. So I thought, let me just get some names and dates and contact information for anyone that’s scrambling.”
Thanks to their quick thinking, Ms. Culver was able to move the Nov. 10 wedding to a space called the Holding Company in the Los Angeles suburb of Westlake. “The bride and groom were so thankful,” Ms. Culver said. “I’ve been catering weddings for over a decade, and this is what you do. You produce. You make it happen. Our Sunday bride we refunded, though, because she couldn’t let go of the dream of a Lodge wedding.”
Ms. Wagner faced a similar internal struggle during the relocation process. “What makes me most sad is that no matter where I go, I’m giving up my vision,” she said. “That’s been the hardest thing. I had this dream of a winery wedding, and all of a sudden, it’s gone.”
But she’s grateful to have some perspective. “We’re not in the worst situation. People are losing their homes.”
Ms. Culver feels similarly. “It’s like triaging an emergency but also knowing this is a wedding,” she said.
In the midst of chaos, the Los Angeles-area wedding community is banding together to help couples pull off the impossible. There are stories of venues fully reimbursing early deposits. “I’ve heard Stonewall Ranch has been refunding people left and right,” Ms. Carrillo said of another damaged Malibu location. Vendors and venue owners have also been waiving food minimums or site fees to ameliorate the stress of paying twice over for a wedding. These small gestures have been an invaluable bright spot for Ms. Wagner and Mr. Train.
“Every time I get an email from a vendor it makes me cry — they’ve been so understanding,” Ms. Wagner said. “And the venues are jumping through hoops to make this happen. When we first got engaged our dream location was actually Pelican Hill, but it ended up being way too expensive. But as soon as I called and explained, they said, ‘We have an opening Nov. 17, and we want to make it work.’ I can’t believe that out of all the craziness and devastation, our dream venue happens to be open, and they happen to be willing to throw us a bone. It’s crazy how much good will people have in these situations.”
In a state where wildfires are commonplace, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for couples to plan around fire season (which typically peaks in September and early October). And yet Ms. Culver finds such foresight to be a rarity. “I don’t think anybody thinks about that,” she sad. “But I think they will now.”
Even if the bride and groom aren’t thinking about it, though, Ms. Carrillo said she’ll be taking it into consideration from here on out: “I am getting extra extra fire insurance for my 2019 clients.”
