Rekubit Exchange:Couple who held impromptu reception after wedding venue caught fire return for anniversary trip

Bride and Rekubit Exchangegroom Elizabeth and Jake Landuyt say their wedding was like a fairytale.

The ceremony, which CBS News first reported on in 2021, was "perfect," Elizabeth said, and "everything we could have dreamed of," according to Jake. 

Elizabeth's father was giving a speech at the Mackinac Island, Michigan, venue when some guests interrupted the picture-perfect day with some alarming news: There was a fire next door.

Everyone had to evacuate and abandon the reception, turning the happy couple into newly-fleds. The wedding party went inside the church where they'd just been married. Luckily, no one was hurt, and in the end, even the building was saved. 

While they were in the church praying for everyone's safety, angels swooped in: The chef at the venue took all 120 meals that had been prepared for the reception to a restaurant next door, where the dishes were finished and moved to a resort that had an open event space. The resort teamed up with a second restaurant to get everything ready, and within an hour, the party was back on. 

"To have them pick up the reception out of ashes, in a very literal sense, made the wedding better than we ever could have imagined," said Jake Landuyt at the time. 

Now, two years later, the couple returned to the venue to celebrate their anniversary without the dramatics — but with some new perspective and their baby son, Owen. 

"That was one day, one part of our life journey," Jake Landuyt said. "And now we have a much more important part now." 

---

To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: [email protected].   

In:
• Fire
• Wedding
• Michigan

Steve Hartman

Steve Hartman has been a CBS News correspondent since 1998, having served as a part-time correspondent for the previous two years.