After all the mentions, I bet you're really curious now. Actually, we're not entirely sure what happened. The account below is as best as we can tell, from the statements given to or by the police, fire department, ambulance personnel, and victims. (If that doesn't spark your curiosity, I don't know what will!)
But first a WARNING. This is NOT A JOKE. If you were expecting some humorous recounting of a minor incident, and haven't the stomach for something more than that, STOP NOW!
The Best Man gave the toast. I thanked the guests. Esther's brother Mark made another toast. We were all in the middle room, near the doorway from the back room. From near the back wall of the back room, where I knew they would be lighting the Baked Alaska cake, there came a loud bang, not quite as loud and sharp as a gunshot, but still rather startling. I thought, "Man, that's some loud champagne!" I turned to look. There were flames. I thought, "Oh, it was the Baked Alaska! I thought that would be just a quiet 'whoomph'. And they should have told me they were going to light it, I wanted to see it!"
But then there were more flames, shooting up the wall. I thought, "Uh... something's not right." I heard some people shouting "Out! Out! Out!". So, we all headed for a nearby exit. On our way out, a lady from the catering company tried to get past to fetch ice. I figured, best let her ahead, someone is probably burnt. Little did I know, it was her! The bang had blown open her shirtsleeve and burned her forearm.
(Near as we can figure, what happened was that she had emptied a can of alcohol into a warmer (what she called a Richaud burner), and then lit the warmer -- without waiting for the fumes to clear, nor putting the cap back on the can! The match for the warmer lit the fumes, which followed down into the can, and burst it, also setting alight some tablecloths and my brother's girlfriend's skirt. (Fortunately, she was not injured, and since she was staying overnight at the site's guest facilities, she had spare legwear to change into.) Esther's other brother-in-law (i.e., her sister's husband) happened also to be standing nearby, and quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. His being a commercial pilot might have something to do with being so quick on fire extinguishers....)
Standing outside, we saw people come out. One of Esther's close friends came out, looking like she had some kind of dust on the side of her hair. Little did I know, that's what singed hair looks like! The friend's two children were crying on the way out, but I figured they had just been scared. It turned out, as you may have guessed by now, that she and her kids had been standing nearby the bang. Later I heard that an ambulance has been called, and that someone (her husband, it turned out) was driving her and the kids to a hospital. (That's how I finally found out that they, or indeed anybody, got hurt.)
Of course, by this point Esther was a total emotional wreck. So much for the happiest day of our lives.
The ambulance arrived, followed quickly by a hook-and-ladder truck (it seems they always send one, since the @#$%^&* drivers here won't get out of the way for anything less!), and then police.
Since I didn't know about any injuries other than Esther's friend and her kids, I told the EMTs that the injured parties were en route to a hospital. Which one, we unfortunately didn't know. They checked around for other injured parties. Good thing they did, since I didn't know about the caterer's injury, nor that a young niece of the Best Man had also been slightly burned. Luckily, that was so slight that she didn't need any ointment or bandages, and wasn't even crying; she just had to hold the back of her fingers on one hand against a wet handkerchief. Nor did I know until then that the Best Man himself, in an effort to push open a window (that, as it turned out, doesn't open) had broken the glass and cut his hand. (I spoke to him two weeks later, and he said it had "stopped leaking", but he still has a numb area around the cut.)
I noticed that the quartet was still playing, inside (two rooms away from the fire, which I heard had been put out). I considered requesting "Nearer My God To Thee", but resisted. B-) They later set up in the gazebo instead (probably moving to protect their instruments from any ill effects of the smoke), but were pretty well drowned out by the idling diesel engine of the fire truck.
A friend of mine offered to put on her "lawyerly attitude" and tell the news trucks, which had gathered outside the gates, to stay out. When it came time to go, we figured that rather than leave in obvious formalwear, we should use the guest rooms to change back into our street clothes, lest we be followed and hounded by the media vultures. The T-shirt I chose to wear up there had become all the more appropriate: "All Stressed Up And No One To Choke!!!"
We headed immediately for the hospital where we had been told that Esther's friend and her kids had been admitted via the emergency room. They were doing well, in spite of first, second, and a little bit of third degree burns. The kids had bandage pads on their ears, with gauze wrapped around their heads to keep them on, and were pretending to be mummies. We still gave them the bride's and bridesmaid's bouquets, which we had brought along to cheer them up.
On a visit right after our honeymoon, we learned that the front of Esther's friend's shirt had also been melted, and she had had to borrow her husband's suitcoat to exit in a decent manner. All three were doing quite well, in no apparent pain, albeit with quite evident scarring. We gave Esther's friend a couple bottles of the wine we had bought at wineries we visited, and gave the kids some toys we had picked up for them, including a couple chunks of a fascinating mineral called ulexite. (A slab of it acts like a bundle of optical fibers, making a clear image on its top of whatever you put its bottom against.) Later, we will visit the Best Man's niece and give her a plush toy horse we picked up for her in Lexington.
Here's what the Washington Post wrote about it.
We wanted it to be a wedding people would never forget, and use a Baked Alaska to finish the evening with a dramatic flair. Well, we certainly got that wish! Lots of people said the marriage started with a bang. We have not yet decided exactly what to do about it. I'm reluctant to involve lawyers, as they will probably cost more than any reasonable settlement, but we do need to make sure we Do Right by the injured parties....
(Possibly coming soon: copies of the police/fire/medical reports, further documentation of damages, etc.)