When Google Maps Crashed My Wedding

The sun was shining and the air was crisp and cool on the day of my elopement. We all piled into a cottage in the Peak District: my fiancé, two dogs, a photographer, a hairstylist, and me. Getting ready had been a breeze with mimosas and gluten-free muffins to our heart’s content. It was all running smoothly until we jinxed it.

“Everything is going shockingly well,” The hairstylist had mused as she packed up her kit. We had agreed, not knowing what was waiting outside the cottage.

In my cupcake of a gown, I followed my partner into the backseat of our hired car, who had already gotten lost on his way to meet us. We had assured him everything was okay, as we had plenty of time to get to the elopement spot.

It was Natasha’s face that gave away that something was going terribly wrong, and they were concerned.

“This doesn’t look right,” Natasha had finally replied, looking through the windshield at the road ahead.

I had been asking for a good twenty minutes already what was bothering them. We tried to open our phones and find a signal to check the address was correct, only to realise we were in the completely wrong area. Initially, our little party considered that I had provided everyone with the wrong address. The driver waved the photographer down ahead of us, and our procession stopped on the remote road.

As I was adorned in a marshmallow-shaped dress, it was Tasha and the driver who hopped out to speak with those in the car ahead of us. They all agreed to try a different postcode linked to the woods we were routed to. It was only after we all started toward the correct spot that it dawned on us the celebrant could be lost, too. Having sent them the direct link to the location in Google Maps, instead of just the postcode and woodland name. There was a high chance that it took them there instead.

Pulling out my cellphone, its case adorned in tacky stickers pricked my eyes. It was upon opening it and finding the blank space where the signal should be that my eyes properly stung. There was no signal, we had no signal, and no way to contact the celebrant who was traveling hours to try and meet us. The dogs wined at our feet, Tasha’s knee shook with stress, and I fought the urge to cry off all my makeup, and the driver tried to make small talk to ease the tension.

The sound of crunching dirt and stone broke through our silence almost an hour later as we finally reached the woodland car park. We held our breaths in the hope she had been waiting for us, but she wasn’t anywhere in sight, and none of us had even the slightest bit of phone signal and hadn’t for the entire drive.

“We will split up,” Frankie, our photographer, insisted, “Tasha will come with me, and we will go further up and try to get a signal. Becca will stay here with the driver and the dogs in case she comes back here.”

With everyone in agreement, we broke the huddle and took our respective positions. Initially, Tasha had thought it was my fault, and I had sent everyone the incorrect address. The lump in my throat choked me because it felt like it was. Sitting there in the awkward silence with a stranger, it left me too much space to stress over causing such an issue. I let my head fall back onto the headrest. It was fifteen minutes before a new car entered the rural lot. Sitting up, I spotted the familiar face and popped out of the car window with an enthusiastic wave.

“Meg!” I shouted, unable to stop grinning or waving, “We were waiting for you! Did Tasha find you?”

Our celebrant, Meg, came to the hired car quickly and shook her head, “No, I had gone up ahead to try and get a signal and send you a text.”

“Did you get our texts?”

“No, but I figured I would come back and wait in case you guys made it.”

“Did you follow the Google Maps link to get here?” I asked, “We copied the address and ended up in the wrong place.”

She sighed, “I thought that must be the case, the postcode is wrong on the listing, but it gets you here correctly if you use the link you sent to me.”

“So it wasn’t my fault?”

She laughed, “No, it wasn’t your fault, blame it on Google Maps.”

A wave of relief washed over me as we still had daylight, we had a celebrant, and the sound of our photographer’s car pulling back into the lot meant I had someone to marry me, also. Once parked, we all agreed on how it had happened and quickly gathered our things for the ceremony to get as far as we could before the sun set on us.

“I’m sorry,” Tasha said quietly to me as we sorted our dogs out of the car, “For blaming you and snapping at you for it.”

“I forgive you, and understand I am not the best with directions it would be something I’d easily messed up, after all, I didn’t know Alaska wasn’t an island until I was eighteen.”

We set off down into the trees, two dogs, a puffy dress, a celebrant, a photographer, and all. The river played our wedding march, and our vows were held in books chosen for one another. Our dog wouldn’t stop barking, the midges were biting, and it was completely perfect.