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December 4, 2010Fort Lauderdale, Florida The Great Flood of 2010 On Saturday, December 4, 2010…the unexpected occurred. A total nightmare for anyone on their wedding day…. We checked in to an Ocean Front Suite at the Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort on Friday, December 3rd and were so excited that our wedding weekend was here! On Saturday morning of the wedding day, I woke up happy as can be and excited to marry the love of my life. I took pictures and a video of how gorgeous the day was and how breathtaking the view we had from our suite was. Everything was on time according to schedule and the super talented Lutz Karpf had just finished my hair and started on my makeup. My friend, Jessica Rivera, another makeup artist, was finishing up my bridesmaids. My line sister, Ivis, was running around and helping me with random things. My 2 photographers, Ashley and Phillip, arrived right before 1pm to start taking pictures of all the wedding details. The videographer also arrived around that time, a little earlier than I was expecting him. I remember that I hung up my dress from the doorframe so that it could be hanging nicely for pictures. I remember the videographer taking down the dress and laying it on the bed. Liana then tried to get the “Mrs. Rosenberg” hanger and I told her to leave it because Ashley knew what to do and she would hang it up. Just a few minutes later the catastrophe occurred…. The videographer took the dress and attempted to hang it from the fire sprinkler that was in the hallway between the bedroom and the living room. When the videographer put the hanger through the sprinkler, the sensor glass inside broke, and activated the sprinkler system, causing water to burst… ALLL OVER MY DRESS (it was stuck there for a few minutes and he struggled to unhook the dress because of the harsh flow of water that was gushing onto my dress and him)….ALL OVER EVERYTHING….about 20 minutes of water running and flooding an entire suite. My first reaction was to jump from the chair and scream and cry and yell and panic “OOOOMMMMMGGGGG MY DRESSSS NOOOOOOOO”. Lutz immediately rushed me outside into the balcony as everyone ran in to save their stuff. Tons of cameras and equipment, makeup galore, hair products, all of my wedding details that were laid out, the rings, my garters, the only invitation and ceremony program we kept for ourselves….everything was getting wet, some stuff obviously got ruined. Suitcases that were in the closet were completely soaked. I just remember everyone running around grabbing as much as they could and taking it outside to the balcony. It almost felt like we were trapped because we couldn’t go into the suite. Once the fire department arrived they were able to turn off the sprinkler…the suite had about 3 inches of standing water in it…all over from the bedroom, the kitchen, guest bathroom, the living room…all! It was literally like a movie and I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me. No one can imagine the pain I was feeling as I watched all my dreams and everything I worked so hard for get literally washed away. I kept closing my eyes and praying I was just having a nightmare that I needed to wake up from. I was praying and pacing back and forth crying and crying and crying. I couldn’t understand why no one was stopping the water from running (as you can imagine I couldn’t think clearly) and so I started yelling over the balcony for help like a mad woman…or a crazy bride that just got her dreams shattered. Phillip rushed my dress to the concierge and they took it to what I was told, “the best bridal shop in fort Lauderdale” to dry it as fast as they could. As a miracle from God, the water from the sprinklers was all clean and clear. Usually when they burst, they come out with black water first. Ashley helped me by making some phone calls to vendors that needed to know what was happening. I called Cliff who was already with my parents on the way there. Cliff and I were supposed to take our “first look” session with the photographers around the beach and the hotel for an hour before the ceremony. My poor groom hugged me sooo hard and told me to stop crying because my eyes would get puffy. The hotel worked diligently to find us another room to continue getting ready in. They placed us in what felt like the smallest room they had available. The hotel unfortunately had no more suites…the water from the sprinkler system went all the way down to the 8th floor; a total of 12 rooms were damaged because of the flood and they were booked to capacity.As we exited the hotel suite, babe took his shirt off and put it over my hair. It was like a pool in there and I cried and apologized to the fire fighters, hotel security, and staff as I walked in shame out of that beautiful room and down a hall that had tons of towels laid down to absorb the water. The hotel staff took all of our things and started bringing it over to the other room. Phillip, Ashley, and Lutz were working hard to get things rolling again. It was soooo difficult to go from feeling like total crap to having to put on a huge smile for the cameras and try to hide what I was really feeling inside…. You know EXPRESS has a difficult time with that. Luckily, one of my DOC's came to the rescue. She came with some very much needed eye drops to help with the redness in my eyes. She took charge of following up on my dress and the status. During that time, my florist delivered our bouquets and when I saw mine, I immediately felt much better. My bouquet was beautiful, and just as I wanted it. While all of this was happening, Cliff was approached by the Hotel administration trying to force him to sign a document that said we would be responsible for the estimated 30, 000 plus dollars in damages. They said that because it was our room we had to take responsibility for everything. This all went on without me knowing as he didn’t want to get me more upset. Thank GOD that they came back a few minutes later and said they would go through the hotel’s insurance as long as someone paid the $1000 deductible. The videographer said he would take care of it and signed a paper saying he would, but if he doesn’t then we would be responsible. This amount was paid by us on Sunday in order to check out….actually $1,060 because of taxes. We are currently waiting on the reimbursement from the videographer. The dress took about 2 hours to dry and it arrived at 3pm or so. One of my sewn in cups was falling out and luckily I took an emergency sewing kit. My maid of honor Liana sewed it really quickly. I put on the dress and noticed it had gotten stretched out. It bugged me that it was soo loose, but I had to keep it moving. We took about 10 mins worth of pics…. None by any balcony or by any water like we wanted. This is what makes me the saddest. What suffered was our first look pictures. We managed to rush and arrive at the church at 4pm instead of 3:30. During the ceremony my mind would wander off and think of all the craze we had just gone through. We couldn’t help but tear up and cry as we truly had just endured a lot of pain and frustration. Everything else for the most part was flawless, especially at the reception. The reception was exactly what we had dreamed of. Shannon and Dasha from Liquid Dj’s (LED lighting and DJ), Stephanie from Ethereal Floral Design, my DOC’s, the caterer, and Rosie from Elegant Temptations (Cake) did such an amazing job with it all. I can truly say that the minute we arrived in the limo to the Leiser Opera Center, my whole mood had changed and we were finally truly happy! Seeing everyone outside with the sparklers made me remember that all of our loved ones flew and drove from so far to see us on our special day and I couldn’t keep letting what happened get in the way. I don’t even know how many strangers hugged me during the catastrophe, but I really needed them all. The hotel really out did themselves and were so helpful through it all, despite the liability problem and all of that. I can’t thank my photographers from 13:13 Boutique wedding photography, Ashley and Phillip, enough! They really helped me when I wanted to lose it during all of that and after the ceremony. Thank you for your patience, love, and your endless help through it all….hands down the best photographers ever! My makeup artist, Lutz Karpf…thank you for keeping me in check and making me beautiful even after all the crying I did. You all did an amazing job and really worked as a team to keep things going with what we had.Thank you to my DOC’s because without them I definitely would’ve been royally screwed with the rest of the wedding. Thank you thank you thank you for being such amazing people!! To my family and friends, thank you for being so supportive! I know most of you thought that my dress “just got wet”…but it was A LOT more to it than you could imagine. To my Matron of Honor, Samantha and my Maid of Honor, Liana…thank you for being the support system I needed on that day. I love you!! Even though what the videographer did was not intentional, I will forever have this vivid image of everything in my mind and I hope no one else ever goes through something like this. In the end, we are grateful that things turned out very well even after all of this craze. We are happily married and that’s what really matters.