In the worst of times, the best of times began for a local couple.

Ross Emms and his then fiancé Cathy Hendren were racing to the chapel when the Barrie tornado struck 30 years ago.

Emms dropped into the newsroom this week with a photo of their wedding, after visiting a jewelery store in advance of their 30th wedding anniversary.

But when Emms recalls the day, it was the incongruities of what he saw as he made his way to Burton Avenue United Church that now come to mind.

“I remember driving down the (Fairview) hill and I saw a guy I knew driving with his windshield all smashed out, and his car just plastered with stuff,” Emms said.

Ross Emms and Cathy Hendren on their wedding day, May 31, 1985. Despite the chaos of that day, the pair began their lives together surrounded by family and friends at Burton Avenue United Church. SUBMITTED
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“You hardly knew where to look, there was roofing steel wrapped around poles on Fairview Road, just stuff flattened everywhere,” he said.

At the time, Hendren (now Emms), who had been at a hair salon, drove on the shoulder of the road, around cars and stopping to show her wedding dress at intersections to work her way through to the church.

Emms said he couldn't get near the church and ended up parking his car on Huronia Road, hoisting his tuxedo over his shoulder and began hiking towards where he would eventually exchange his wedding vows.

“This guy picked me up on his motorcycle and drove me to my brother's house,” he said.

There was no electricity at the church, so it became an impromptu candlelight service accompanied by piano because the electric organ wasn't working.

They waited for wedding party members for 90 minutes before the wedding service began, he said.

“How would you call it off? It's not like now when everybody has cellphones. There was no way to let people know. And the minister didn't want us to cancel it, so we went ahead with it,” he said.

Their reception was held at the former Tall Trees Campground, where Essa Road and Mapleview Drive subdivisions have filled in what was once the edge of town.

But Emms said the wedding suite they'd reserved months earlier at the former Sundial Restaurant in Orillia had been taken over by Ontario Provincial Police who were overseeing highway traffic after the tornado.

Now, Hendren has a veterinary practice in Essa Township, and Emms works for the City of Barrie water department.

They have two sons, and long memories of how their lives together began.

“Most of the stories you hear about the tornado, people lost their homes or their lives. Ours is kind of a happy story. It could have been a lot worse,” he said.

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