Dulce Gonzalez sat in her parents’ car as the rain came pouring down. Storm clouds had rolled in at the last minute and appeared to be in the process of ruining the beach wedding Dulce and her husband, Ariel, had planned.
“I was trying to hold my tears,” Dulce recalls. “I’m about to have a panic attack, I’m asking my mom, ‘What am I gonna do?'”
When they first met, Dulce and Ariel would meet up on the beach in Pascagoula, Mississippi. It was meaningful for both of them to get married where their relationship blossomed. But it seems as if Mother Nature had other plans.
That’s when a stranger, 67-year-old Cynthia Strunk, walked up to the car soaking wet. She had been watching the wedding preparations from her beachfront house, only to see the rain wash those plans away. So Cynthia asked Dulce if she and her husband, Shannon, could host her wedding inside their house.
“The bride’s mother started crying at that point and Dulce said ‘thank you,'” says Cynthia. “She had tears in her eyes.”
Cynthia asked Dulce for 10 minutes to set up. She pulled out about two dozen chairs she and her husband had in storage and set them up in front of a vestibule that acted as an altar.
With help from a few umbrellas, Cynthia and her husband helped usher about 50 guests into their home. They then waited in the kitchen, occasionally stealing a glance at what Cynthia called a “beautiful, beautiful ceremony.”
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Afterward, Dulce’s father called Cynthia and her husband into the room so he could thank them before all the guests headed to the reception.
“We were just happy to do it,” says Cynthia. “To us, it was no big deal.”
Dulce and her new husband returned to Cynthia’s home a few days later with flowers and a cake to thank them for their generosity. The two couples plan to keep in touch, with Dulce pledging to prepare a home-cooked meal for Cynthia and her husband.
“We will never ever forget that day,” says Dulce. “That was an extreme blessing and made our big day even more special.”