A bear crashed our dream wedding and ate all the desserts — but we wouldn't change a thing

• Cailyn MacRossie-Martinez and her husband, Brandon Martinez, spent months planning their dream wedding.
• But things didn't go to plan. A downpour hit and a bear destroyed their dessert bar.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Cailyn MacRossie-Martinez, 24, who married her husband Brandon Martinez in Boulder, Colorado, on July 31, 2023, after eight months of planning. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

The night before the wedding, we made a last-minute decision to choreograph our first dance. We were in the gym, YouTubing dance moves that we could try. At the time, I was thinking how crazy we were for trying to do that.

But, in the end, it was actually the only thing that went according to plan.

I'd received a flood warning

I had a vision of how certain moments of the wedding would pan out. One thing that I'd always visualized was walking down the aisle and how that was going to feel.

I'd heard people say that when you walk down it, the only thing you see is your partner and nothing else. For me, that was absolutely the case, even though there was a huge dark cloud above us.

I was like, 'I don't care.' I'm just going to walk down this aisle and marry Brandon because that's what I'm here to do.

I'd received a flood warning on my phone as we were all getting ready. My bridesmaids told me to not look at the weather, not worry about it, telling me that rain on your wedding day is good luck.

My hair was completely messed up

We were expecting the sprinkle to come and then wash away. Usually in Colorado, the rain will downpour for a few minutes and then the clouds will move.

As we waited for that to happen, we paused the ceremony. We sat there for a full five minutes, getting drenched as we waited for the rain to get lighter. It never did. So, we just continued with the ceremony.

We had to turn the microphones up because the pounding of the rain on top of the umbrellas was so loud, nobody could hear what we were saying. I was also really worried about our vows, which were written in ink on paper, getting diminished by the rain.

And my hair was completely messed up by that point. I was a little sad because you spend a good amount of money on your hair before you get married. It ended up not mattering because we ended up having such beautiful photos and moments.

'Did you know there's a bear in here?'

We had just cut our cake and we did our first dance. I was rallying everyone to go dance, not thinking anything about the dessert.

Brandon was by the bar to go get a drink and my brother came running up to him, saying: "Did you know there's a bear in here?"

Next thing we knew, he was pulling up his phone and showing this picture of an actual bear. Then he's telling all the other guests, people are running around.

The bear was on top of the dessert table, just plowing through the dessert bar. My brother and his best friend were filming it. Security eventually came through and shooed it off.

There were bear warnings all around the venue. It's in Boulder, there's a lot of wildlife here.

But I've never personally seen a bear before and, as Colorado natives, it's something you kind of hear about, but definitely not what I was expecting.

We had all sorts of stuff — cookies of different sorts, lemon bars, cheesecake bites, brownies, and a sweetheart cake just for us to cut. But people only got a small handful of dessert because it wasn't very long before it got wiped out by the bear.

It just added to the energy and excitement of it all

I would say there was a lot of shock and awe throughout the night, but I think that's what enhanced it.

You already have this adrenaline because it's the biggest day of your life, but when you have these added elements of crazy weather and a bear crashing the dessert table. It just added to the energy and excitement of it all.

There were just so many super-high highs and people being so just enthralled with the experience they were having.

People kept telling us at the end of the night and throughout the day: "This wedding was monumental. This was an iconic wedding. We will never forget this day."

We definitely won't. That's for sure.