NORTH CAROLINA (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A bride set to have her wedding in the Asheville area about two weeks after Helene hit had two options – postpone her big day or change her expectations. After going back and forth with vendors, she decided to go ahead with it, but with an open invitation to complete strangers. "So, believe it or not. We didn't know half of the people there,” Meagan Archard said. It’s a day that Archard had been planning for two years. Her wedding day was originally set to happen on October 15, 2023, but got pushed back.  Instead of wedding bells, the couple welcomed their first child, Nolan. Archard called it nothing short of a miracle. "Long story short, we were trying to get pregnant for a very long time. It wasn't happening for us sadly. And so, we just decided to focus on our wedding instead, and naturally when you change focus, magic kind of happens,” she said. After welcoming their son, the couple picked a new wedding date, October 12, 2024, with no idea what could take place 16 days prior. (Credit: Wandering Ducks Photo & Film LLC) "It was like a roller coaster of feelings. You know, on one end, obviously, we've been planning this wedding for two years and we wanted it to happen of course, and on the other end. What is morally the right thing to do?" she said. In the days following Helene, Archard, who was living in Florida, watched as videos and images started to show the reality of the situation. Her first instinct was to check on her vendors."At the end of the day, after two years, to me it was just a wedding. Whether it happened or it didn't, I just wanted to make sure that my vendors were okay,” she said. Not only did her vendors give her the go-ahead, but some also went as far as asking her to make the day happen if she could. "I think that was kind of the mental turning point for me of like, ‘This is okay Meagan, if we can make this happen, my vendors want this to happen’,” she said. But not without one more obstacle – Hurricane Milton. Archard and her now husband left Florida before the Category 3 made landfall, but 25 of her guests were no longer able to make the trek to North Carolina. "We were doing okay and then we hit this mental hurdle again. So, not this affecting the majority of the people attending my wedding live in Florida. So, if you could imagine, we were like what is happening?” She said. "Then we kind of had this idea to invite strangers to come to the wedding." To find those strangers, she turned to her mother who is a nurse at Mission Hospital in Asheville, where staff at this point in time had been working non-stop for more than two weeks. "It has been a very challenging month,” nurse Paige Younkin said. When asked if she would like to attend the wedding of an absolute stranger, Younkin and about two dozen of her co-workers said, 'Absolutely.' "It was great because not only were we able to socialize and dress up and see each other and have fun, socialize with this group of people that we had been hearing about and been hearing all the trials and tribulations about, but now got to spend some really happy times, celebrating with them and it was very uplifting,” Younkin said. A wedding of about 100 people, with nearly half meeting the bride for the very first time. (Credit: Wandering Ducks Photos & Film LLC) "We called them the Hollywood extras.  So, that was their nickname throughout the whole night.  Like when I would go up and say, ‘You must be a Hollywood extra. I am Meagan nice to meet you.' It just ended up being lighthearted and fun, but they never left the dance floor,” Archard said. A day meant to celebrate her marriage was shared with a community of healthcare workers who, weeks prior, were more than happy to step up when needed."This was meant to happen for a reason.  And so that is what I am leaning on.  And as stressful as it was, maybe it wasn't the day I had imagined just leading up with stress, obviously. But the day was perfect,” Archard said.