This Boston wedding almost didn’t happen. And then a hotel staff dropped everything.

When Alec and Sophia Fowler abandoned their wedding plans in favor of a Boston elopement, they never imagined that they’d need a plan C.

But when the bride arrived in her wedding dress at her elopement venue in Boston on Feb. 1 and the establishment “forgot that we were getting married there that day,” as Sophia put it, she had to think fast.

The ceremony, with their parents and a photographer, was supposed to happen at noon with Alec’s dad officiating. After realizing the mistake at the venue (which Sophia declined to name) she and her mother hopped into a hired car in search of a solution.

“Literally, like a beacon of hope, I looked up out of the car window and the Omni Parker House is right there,” Sophia said.

The driver pulled over and Sophia’s mother ran into the historic Boston hotel to ask a favor. The bride sat in silence in the car with her fiancee on the phone.

A month prior, the Brighton couple, who met at Boston University in 2018, cancelled their scheduled wedding on May 30, 2024. Sophia, a project manager, was planning it herself and had secured a venue and caterer, but none of it felt right.

“I felt like we were getting further away from what our goal was,” Sophia said. “So Alec and I, around the first of January, had a conversation [and asked], ‘Is this really what we want? Is the 100-person wedding the dream? And we were both unanimously like, ‘No, not at all.’ A lot of family said if we don’t have the full wedding, we’ll regret it. But then it became obvious that if we did do it, we’d regret it.”

They nervously told their families they were ditching the original plan and eloping. Everyone was supportive, Sophia said.

The couple knew they wanted to tie the knot in Boston, the city where they met and fell in love. Alec, 25, who works in finance, is from Connecticut and Sophia, 24, is from New York, but they have no plans to leave the area.

“Boston is such a deep-rooted part of our relationship and our history. We just love the city so much,” Sophia said.

They set a new wedding date for Feb. 1, on the five-year anniversary of when Alec asked Sophia out after meeting her in a BU business class.

“I remember looking at her the first day of my class and just thinking that I wanted to get to know her,” Alec said.

They shared dinner at Tasty Burger with a mutual friend, which led to a six-month friendship before they began dating.

“If it was a cartoon, I would have had hearts in my eyes. I just right away had a connection with him,” Sophia said.

The couple moved in together on March 1, 2020, right before the coronavirus pandemic shut the world down. Soon they were confined to a 500-square-foot apartment. Their relationship deepened.

Alec proposed in September of 2022 during a trip to Amsterdam. He dropped down on one knee while walking over a canal. Though they talked about marriage, Sophia said she was not expecting a ring on that trip.

“It was so romantic,” she said. “And a boat went by underneath right as he proposed and they all applauded us.”

Their wedding day, which began so frantically, was romantic, too, thanks to the staff at the Omni Parker House.

Janithri Kulatunga, the assistant manager of the front office, was working when Sophia’s mother entered the hotel, as she put it, “very sad and upset.”

“She said, ‘My daughter’s wedding was supposed to be today and the place was double booked and is there anything you can do?’” Kulatunga recalled.

Kulatunga quickly checked with her team before leading the bride and her mother to a room that happened to be set up for a wedding taking place a few days later. Alec was not far away, since they hadn’t traveled far from the original venue.

“I told him, ‘We’ve got a place! Come to the Omni Parker House right now!’ I hang up and it’s 11:59,” Sophia said.

Lena Mirisola, the couple’s photographer, said she has seen a lot of unexpected things happen at weddings during the 13 years she’s been in business, but never a last-minute venue change.

“I’ve never seen anyone go above and beyond as the Omni Parker House did,” said Mirisola of Lena Mirisola Photography in Boston. “It wasn’t their problem but they went so above and beyond, they blew me away.”

“They were incredibly accommodating,” Sophia said. “They are getting waters and dusting off the railings, fluffing my dress. They absolutely took the utmost care of us and I couldn’t be more grateful to them.”

The hotel workers kept Sophia’s father in a separate room so the father and daughter could enjoy the “first look,” Kulatunga said.

“My dad came in and before I knew it he was walking me down the aisle,” Sophia said.

The staff also made sure Alec didn’t see his bride until she came down the aisle.

Alec said he was thrilled with the new location of the ceremony, calling the Omni Parker House, “the most Boston and historic you can get.”

“It was just perfect,” he said.

During the vows, a manager sprinted to the kitchen and returned with one of the hotel’s famous Boston cream pies with a personalized message of congratulations on the plate. The couple enjoyed the dessert during a champagne toast.

Kulatunga said about the experience, “It was just a magical thing that we were able to do.”

By 12:45 p.m., the newly married couple was back on the street to take photos at some of Boston’s most iconic spots as planned. They went to Faneuil Hall and posed in front of the Quincy Market building and then went inside for a lobster roll at Boston & Maine Fish Co. (all documented on the Faneuil Hall Marketplace Instagram page) before walking to Bostonia Public House.

Mirisola marveled at the couple’s resilience.

“More mind-blowing than the situation is how they handled it,” said Mirisola. “I’ve never had a couple experience such a big situation on their wedding day with such grace and joy and smiles.”

As they gear up for their honeymoon in Greece in early June (following their original May wedding date), the couple said they wouldn’t change a thing about the day they said “I do.”

“In the end, it sums up how Sophia and I are in our relationship,” said Alec. “We’re very much spontaneous people, we do things on the fly. It definitely showcased our character and our relationship.”

“It was a thousand times better than we ever could have imagined,” Sophia said. “I love to tell a good story, it’s one of my favorite things. What we got out of it, at the end of the day, is a great story.”