The Holmes/Williams wedding was struck by tragedy last Thursday when the rustic island beach venue left 49 dead as a result of exposure during the hours-long ceremony.
“Nobody could have planned for this,” wedding planner Shauna Doyle said of the tragedy. “The bride’s vows were six pages of Wordsworth quotes. By the end, heat stroke had set in.”
Doyle added, “You could already see the lace tan lines from her veil.”
Delirious, the groomsmen went “full-on Lord of the Flies” according to father of the bride, Stephen Williams. “They kept fighting over the small amounts of water in the floating candle Mason jar lanterns. “I’ve never seen anything so barbaric,” he wrote from a nearby hospital.
With no refreshments served until after the ceremonial releasing of the doves, much of the crowd quickly succumbed to dehydration, forming a rudimentary society and class system based on who wore the largest hat.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest finally said, after the groom had already gone unconscious and soon spontaneously combusted. The burlap garlands only fueled the inferno.
Photographer Ryan Dunn survived by drinking the blood of children, who were among the first to succumb to the deadly wedding conditions. “The moments I captured are some of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen on film,” he said. “But I have to say, it was all worth it.”
Thankfully, the blaze acted as a signal fire, alerting a plane overhead of the peril. Guests with the most serious burns were immediately airlifted to hospital, but most of the wedding party remains missing, where they are presumed to have erected a utopian government deep within the jungle.
