San Francisco

San Francisco Couple Holds ‘Amazing' Destination Wedding Amid Hurricane

A Category 5 hurricane threatened their Big Day.

But Hurricane Patricia didn't cause the havoc it threatened to wreak in Mexico and Puerto Vallarta over the weekend, much to the delight of a San Francisco couple who held a destination wedding with 70 of their closest friends and family there.

"Everything went off according to plan," Anthony Chavira told NBC Bay Area via Skype, after he married Rodolfo Melgoza on Saturday at the Now Amber Puerto Vallarta beach resort. "It was an amazing day."

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Miguel Serrano.
Rodolfo Melgoza (left) and Anthony Chavira of San Francisco get married on Oct. 25, 2015 at the Now Amber Puerto Vallarta a day after Hurricane Patricia.

The day before, the grooms were hunkered down in an elementary school shelter, evacuated from the hotel, wondering how their wedding day would turn out to be. Melgoza said they weren't even planning for a "worst case" scenario because "we just didn't know." The couple took their rings with them from the hotel and decided they'd just say their vows at the shelter if need be.

But the storm hit a rural part of Mexico on Friday and the weather cleared up for their Saturday wedding. "We gave our guests the wedding they were looking for, a little bit of drama," Melgoza said, adding that getting evacuated was pretty exciting. But sipping champagne after their "I do's" under picture-perfect skies was what they all had been hoping for.

"The weather was perfect," Melgoza said.

As for any hurricane fallout, the couple said some of their guests had to wait a day or two extra in Puerto Vallarta because of airplane delays.

"People are more than willing to stay an extra day," Chavira said.

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