Heavy rain caused major flooding at a wedding in Metairie on Saturday, but that didn't stop newlyweds Olivia and Casey Field from having the night of their lives. As torrential downpours swamped their reception, the couple and their guests kept the celebration going, dancing the night away while water crept across the floor.
More than seven inches of rain fell in just a few hours across parts of Metairie that evening, according to WDSU. Photographers with Poise Photo captured moments from the event, showing the party continuing despite the rain, images that quickly circulated as a bright spot amid a soggy holiday weekend.
Six Inches of Water, Zero Interruptions
Members of the band performing that evening estimated there were approximately six inches of water covering the dance floor, per a report from k945.com. Guests kept dancing anyway as the band, Paper Chase, performed under a large tent set up for the reception, according to 1079ishot.com.
Paper Chase credited GW Events with managing production and keeping the electricity running throughout the night. The band said it never lost power, even as the storm intensified around the tent and water pooled at dancers' feet.
A Parish-Wide Deluge
The wedding flooding wasn't an isolated incident. Jefferson Parish experienced numerous street flooding incidents over the weekend, primarily in the Metairie area, according to wgno.com. Parish drainage director Ben Lepine said the suburban basin received more than seven and a half inches of rain in just three hours, overwhelming the street drainage system.
Metairie’s streets drain through a network of canals, subsurface lines and pump stations. Jefferson Parish says it maintains 1,465 miles of street drainage and 72 pump stations; its drainage information puts average pumping capacity on the East Bank at 0.75 inches of rain per hour and says the major system is designed for a 10-year recurrent rainfall event. Those parish-wide figures do not establish conditions at the wedding site, but they show the scale of infrastructure handling runoff across the area. The parish drainage department’s system overview lists the network’s components.
One Metairie resident told the outlet that the deluge dropped six inches of rain in a matter of about two and a half to three hours. Lepine added that, at the time, officials had not had any reported structural flooding, saying crews were still out investigating.
The parish says short bursts of intense rain can temporarily flood streets even without structural flooding. Some older drain lines, particularly in areas built before 1981, were not designed to handle high rainfall rates over a short period; smaller pipes and debris in drains can also reduce runoff capacity. That guidance describes a broader vulnerability, not a finding about the specific streets or drainage equipment near the reception. Jefferson Parish’s drainage FAQ explains why intense downpours can outpace street drainage.
Roads Swamped Across the Parish
Jefferson Parish Emergency Management released a list of street flooding locations as of 6:55 p.m. that Saturday, according to fox8live.com. Among the trouble spots: deep water on Causeway between I-10 and Veterans that was still passable, though vehicles were stalling out, and a stretch of Transcontinental between West Esplanade and the Lake that was reported impassable.
WDSU's earlier storm coverage had noted that parts of Jefferson Parish, particularly near Lafrenière Park, recorded up to seven inches of rain within a three-hour window as the system moved through. For one couple just trying to get through their reception, that same storm became an unforgettable backdrop rather than a dealbreaker.
