Couple, Goldsboro hotel don't let Florence ruin wedding

By Sarah Krueger, WRAL reporter

Goldsboro, N.C. — Amy Carey and John Thornton will never forget their wedding day, nor will the staff of the TownePlace Suites by Marriott hotel in Goldsboro.

“The original plan was at his mom’s house,” Amy said. “She’s got a really lovely 100-year-old farmhouse, and we were going to get married on the porch, [have an] outdoor wedding.”

But flooding from Hurricane Florence left the Wayne County farmhouse inaccessible.

So, the hotel staff stepped up and offered their breakfast room as a wedding chapel.

“Our team as a whole said, ‘We’ve got to do something for them,'” General Manager Jennifer Wickes said.

The Wayne County couple was staying at the hotel so they could spend more time with their guests.

The whole staff took on new roles as wedding coordinators, caterers, DJs and decorators, Wickes said.

“Shanise was talking about decorating. Chanelle was talking about, ‘Let’s do this, let’s do that,'” she said.

Amy put together her bouquet and frosted the wedding cake in her hotel room.

In the end, the couple’s love and the hotel staff’s enthusiasm overcame the problems posed by Florence.

“We’re really blessed, and we’re really happy,” Amy said.

“It’s stressing on everybody here, but this, it lightens it and brightens it,” Wickes said. “There’s not just gloom. There is brightness. There is love.”

But John noted Florence still got in a jab at the couple.

“We were supposed to go to Wrightsville Beach for our honeymoon,” he said.