Tornado interrupts rehearsal dinner at Eureka venue, couple shares story as they move forward with weekend ceremony

EUREKA, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Taylor Jonas and Kyle O’Driscoll will tie the knot on Saturday despite a tornado interrupting their wedding plans at Brookdale Farm.

The couple was going through their rehearsal at the scenic venue when the storm hit, tearing the metal roof off the Farm’s event space.

“We didn’t really know what was happening,” Jonas said. “But we knew something was happening.”

The couple and their guests took shelter wherever they could find it. Some hid in the bathrooms. Jonas’ father and brother ducked for cover under the bar.

“Next thing we knew, the roof was flying off,” O’Driscoll said. “We went kind of pure chaos.”

The EF1 tornado left behind extensive damage to a nearby storage shed at the farm. But, as structural engineers found out on Friday, the building’s event space remained intact except for the hole in the roof.

James Vavak, the general manager at Brookdale, said the venue would do everything they could to make sure the party could go on, more or less, as planned.

Early Friday morning a team of roofers began patching holes to secure the event space. By the end of the day, Vavak’s staff had also cleaned up the inside and set out tables and decorations for Saturday’s ceremony.

“We want to make sure the building is safe to be occupied. But at the end of the day, we want to make this bride’s wedding a reality,” he said.

Jonas and Driscoll, who met three years ago on a dating app, said that they would have wanted to move forward with the wedding, venue or not.

“We have all our people,” Jonas said. “That’s the most important thing.”

Her fiancé agreed.

“At the end of the day, I have the most amazing woman by my side. She’ll still be there through national disasters,” said O’Driscoll.