Through Saintly Intercession, Couple Marries During Hurricane Barry

Tags: Currents Brooklyn, NY, Entertainment, Faith, Inspiration, Queens, NY

By Emily Drooby

Lily Hannigan met Troy Hobson after moving from the Diocese of Brooklyn to New Orleans.

The two fell in love, got engaged and designed their dream wedding, but Mother Nature had different plans.

Hurricane Barry was threatening to slam Louisiana on the day of their Cajun-style wedding.

“Our joke was, ‘Someone upstairs does not want this to happen, because they’re throwing all these catastrophes our way,’” said Lily.

But the resourceful couple refused to let the storm’s potential flooding stand in their way.

With the cooperation of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, the couple moved their Catholic ceremony to a Friday, alerting guests of the eleventh-hour change.

“The first thing that we did was, we wanted to make sure we got the ceremony in like, no matter what,” Lily explained.

“I think we sent that message out at 11, like,” said Troy. The couple could only give guests three hours notice of the changed time.

As a lifelong member of the Church the Holy Mass was important to Lily, who attended both Saint Mel’s and St. Agnes in Queens.

But the reception was still scheduled for the next day: landfall day.

“At noon, I had like a venue coordinator at the space and she called me and she goes, ‘Did you hear the news,’ which is a very ominous way to start a phone call,” Lily recalled.

The city had set a curfew for 8pm, right after their reception’s start time.

“So we had to move the time up from essentially 7:30 p.m. start time to 2:30 p.m., this was at noon. we were all in our pajamas,” Lily said.

But from there, everything fell into place. Hair and makeup was rebooked, flowers were brought in early and even the musicians were replaced.

“It was miraculous to see. She just rolled with every single punch all weekend, every time a catastrophe struck she just said, ‘Alright well here’s what we are going to do. We will figure this out,’” Troy said of his new wife.

They even got outside for the city’s traditional second line wedding reception dance, and the hurricane ended up barely touching New Orleans

“Our Lady of Prompt Succor is the patron saint of preventing hurricanes. So, everyone was on board with some intercession and she came through for us,” Lily said.

This couple’s story proves that together, they can weather any storm.