To say Hurricane Ike was a major inconvenience for Southeast Texans is an understatement.

It was a massive storm, affecting residents from South to Southwest Louisiana all the way down to Corpus Christi, and literally pulled the rug out of thousands of lives and years of memories in Bridge City alone.

Ike’s trek towards this part of Texas created a plan of it’s own for two Southeast Texans eager to begin their lives as newlyweds, and in the process of doing so carved out memories by the bucket loads by way of one very quick and unforgettable wedding.

It all started with the evacuation order.

“We were evacuated to Tyler,” began Heidi Howard (formerly Heidi Todd). “That’s where my fiancé’s (Brian) Coast Guard Unit was mobilizing.”

Her now husband is a member of Port Arthur’s Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit. After remaining in Tyler for several days, Howard was given word that the wedding originally scheduled for September 20 would have to be rescheduled to due the workload the Coast Guard was about to receive.

“They said, ‘you have two days to get married, and if you don’t want to get married in these two days then you’ll probably have to wait a few months,” Howard went on.

Since the two already secured their wedding license and planned to move into their home immediately after the wedding, the two made the impromptu decision to get married, while evacuated, in Tyler.

“The first thing I did was call his parents, who live in Panama City, Florida and said, ‘okay, can you make it into Tyler for the wedding?’ They said they’d leave the next morning.”

“I then had to call my own parents, who had evacuated all the way to Southeast Louisiana and they immediately drove back this way. They stopped in Port Neches to pick up a few wedding items, most notably the pew bows my mother made, the unity candle. My mother (Ruth Ellen Todd, owner of Leo Week’s Photographers) also had my wedding dress and his wedding band with her, because she was afraid we’d go and get married without them there,” Howard laughed.

After getting a hold of essential wedding personnel, Howard took to the phone book and called the first Methodist church she found listed in Tyler; Cedar Street United Methodist Church.

“The pastor there, Karen Jones, was very helpful and she said they would accommodate us in any way possible.”

With her parents on the road and ready to decorate the church in the morning, Howard then began the task of finding someplace to hold a reception for the wedding party and guests that would show up.

“There was a place next to the Ramada Inn, where we were staying, The Potpourri House, so I called them and they put me in through the owner, who invited me over that night,” Howard recalled. “He showed me around, brought me out a menu so I could choose some entrees; He asked me what our flowers were going to be and what our colors were going to be and that was it.”

Meanwhile, Howard’s fiancé was completely oblivious about the quest at hand.