A couple almost had to cancel their wedding after the groom slit his face open, needed 28 stitches and lost a tooth days before the big day and a hurricane nearly stopped the maid of honour and flowers arriving in time. Adelia Killian, 25, and her partner, Connor, 29, were looking forward to getting married and decided to wed in Nantucket, Massachusetts, US, in September 2021.
The pair had arranged their wedding in just two weeks after their relatives encouraged them to tie the knot on an upcoming family holiday. After managing to get it all sorted in the nick of time, the couple flew out to Nantucket in August 2021.
But the day after they arrived, Adelia had a call to say Connor had flipped over the handlebars of a bike and cut his face and knocked a tooth out. Fortunately, the groom was OK but had to have 28 stitches and was told he wouldn't be able to have his tooth replaced until after the wedding.
Disaster struck again when the maid of honour’s flight was cancelled because of a hurricane and the family had to scramble to find her an alternative flight. The flowers, the maid of honour - Adelia’s sister, Evellyn Symons, 29 - arrived just a few hours before the wedding but despite it all Adelia said she 'wouldn’t change a thing'.
Adelia, a content creator, from Cincinnati, Ohio, US, said: “I thought we might have to cancel the wedding when I saw Connor, but he convinced me that we should still go ahead. He looked so beat up and his lip was all torn.
“He had to have his stitches in for the day but we took photos from one side of his face so you couldn’t see them. When my sister had her flight cancelled, I was crushed.
“Fortunately, the hurricane wasn’t as bad as it was meant to be in the end, and we got her on another flight. My flowers arrived at 6am in the morning and my wedding started at 9am so it was a very close call.
“Everything seemed to go wrong but we got there in the end and it didn’t spoil a lovely day.”
Adelia met Connor, a delivery driver, in February 2020 on a dating app and the pair moved in together after two weeks of dating when the pandemic hit.
“We thought it would only be for a few weeks,” Adelia said. “Luckily we hit it off and lasted.”
Connor proposed to Adelia in July 2021 at their local park and the couple started looking into planning their wedding. “Everything was so expensive, and you had to book so far in advance, so we decided to elope,” Adelia said.
“We wanted all our close family there, but it was tricky to organise. Then they suggested we do it in two weeks' time at a holiday we had already booked.
“It seemed crazy, but we decided to go for it.”
Adelia managed to book the venue, order flowers, buy a dress, book a photographer and sort all the details in just two weeks before they flew out at the end of August 2021 - just a week before their wedding date.
“I had my dress overnight shipped on the day we left for the holiday,” she said. “Thankfully it fit and didn’t need alterations.
“My sister said to me - 'something always goes wrong' just before I left but I thought we’d got it all sorted so we’d be OK.”
Connor decided to go on a bike ride with his groomsmen the following day and Adelia went shopping. “I got a call saying he’d had a fall and cut his lip but was alright,” Adelia said.
“Then they told me he’d lost his tooth. I rushed to the hospital just wanting to know he was alright.
“He had a face mask on at first and when he took it off, he looked so beat up. His lip was so cut he couldn’t drink anything.
“He just laughed and said – ‘hey honey, I look like Stu from The Hangover.’”
Connor had to have 28 stitches and was told they’d need to wait for the stitches to be removed to have a new tooth fitted.
“I thought it was all too traumatic and we should cancel the wedding, but Connor reassured me that we’d planned it all now,” Adelia said. “Slowly his swelling went down over the week, so I got over the trauma of the accident.”
But the couple were devasted when they then found out their maid of honour might not make it to the wedding in time.
“My sister called and said her flight had been cancelled because of a hurricane,” Adelia said.
“My whole family got involved to find her another way here. I was told my flowers might be delayed too because of the hurricane.”
Miraculously Evellyn managed to get on a different flight and arrived on the day before of the wedding.
“It all came together in the end,” Adelia said. “It was a super hot day and it was really nice having just 25 people there.
“It meant Connor and I could actually enjoy the day together rather than entertaining people. Connor had a tooth missing and his stitches still in, but it was funny and didn’t ruin the day.
“Now he’s got a cute little scar to remind us of it all.”
Connor said: "It was painful having that gash on my lip and I was just thinking about how I was going to look for these pictures for the wedding. It was kind of scary.
“The swelling went down enough for the day. The hurricane then hit but I had a feeling everything would turn out ok.
“The day was amazing in the end despite everything trying to be against us.”
