Desperate Mattapoisett Bride’s Hurricane Lee Nightmare Has a Happy Ending

Rachael Lomp was preparing for the worst.

The Mattapoisett bride had spent over a year planning for her wedding at Rochester's Eastover Farm on Saturday, Sept. 16, but forecasts for hurricane-force winds called for immediate action. With just days until her wedding day, Lomp was on the hunt for a new, indoor venue. You can imagine the anxiety.

"My mom was driving around, knocking on venues' doors trying to find a last-minute place to host our wedding," Lomp said. "I was making phone calls from work. People would answer the phone and say, 'Oh, man, we just booked this a half hour ago.'  I think a lot of people were making those last-minute shifts from outdoor tent weddings to indoor venues."

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Lomp had heard the forecasts for what could be hurricane-force winds between 60 and 80 mph. Her caterer and tent provider, On the Go in Mattapoisett, said the tents were not safe for the forecasted weather.

Luckily, On The Go's owner, Corey Lorenco, was able to find Lomp another location that checked all the boxes. The wedding was switched to Arch at the Meadow in Rochester, which houses an airplane hangar to shelter her guests (even in tropical storm conditions).

The best news came Friday morning when Lomp turned on Fun 107 and heard Kelly Bates from ABC6 predicting sunshine by late Saturday afternoon. With the hurricane continuing to track further and further east, the weekend's forecast had drastically changed.

"I had just kind of accepted the fact that my wedding was going to be different than what I expected, but the bottom line was that all the people that I love and care about will be there. It almost feels like we're being rewarded for having the right attitude about it," Lomp said.

Kelly Bates said the track of the hurricane was 100% the best-case scenario we could have hoped for.

"It's not even making landfall in the U.S. now. It's going to be in the Canadian maritime," the meteorologist said. "The thing about Saturday is that when we get into the afternoon we're going to see increasing sunshine. If you have Saturday afternoon plans they are going to be fine."