Wedding couples hope for safe arrivals

Justin Whitney is battling mice in his kitchen, checking in on his friend’s hours-old baby and studying for the Employment Law final he’ll be taking Saturday morning – just a few hours before he’ll get married to Jill Richter.

So forgive him if he’s not all that worried about the inconveniences his eight friends and family members will face as they fly in today, a day after a foiled terror plot uncovered in Great Britain set off alarms throughout the air travel industry and heightened security restrictions at airports nationwide.

“We didn’t even know there’s a terror event,” said Whitney, a second-year law student at Washburn University. “It’s probably the furthest thing from my mind right now.”

But Whitney and others with weddings scheduled this weekend just might find themselves thinking about such concerns today. There are rehearsals to attend, dinners to enjoy and – perhaps most of all – brides’ already-frayed nerves to calm.

“We have tons of people coming in – we’re very nervous,” said Deanell Tacha, whose daughter, Sarah, is getting married Saturday at the new family home near Stull. About three dozen family and guests are flying in for the ceremony.

For her part, Sarah Tacha wouldn’t let the prospect of travel delays or other inconveniences get to her Thursday afternoon. Her future husband, Joel Bergman, just closed the purchase of a home in Portland, they’re both about to start new jobs in a few weeks, and the caterer, florist, photographer and everyone else assure her that everything will be in place for the wedding couple and their 160 guests.

“I’m not freaking out,” she said, between appointments Thursday afternoon. “There’s nothing to be nervous about in the getting-married part. It’s just making sure everything comes together.

“We just want them to be here by Saturday night. We’re not super worried.”