A Crash Closed the Only Road to Their Wedding. Then an Elk Hunter Said, ‘I’m Going to Get You There’

Erich Thalacker and Kyla Dickey had planned every detail of their wedding day. Erich had even grown the dahlias and zinnias for it in his own backyard.

What they could not plan for was a closed highway, a ceremony starting in one hour, and the elk hunter who decided that was not going to stop them.

Photos in the Mountains, Then a Closed Road

The couple met in a high school composition class about 12 or 13 years ago. Years later, after both moved to Idaho, they chose a wedding at South Fork Lodge in Lowman. Before the ceremony on Sept. 26, they put on their wedding clothes and drove up into the Sawtooth Mountains for photos, the same mountains where they got engaged.

“We wanted to feel wild and adventurous and whatnot,” Erich told KTVB.

They got more adventure than they asked for. While their guests were gathering at the lodge, a fatal crash closed Highway 21, the only road back. The estimated wait was about four hours. The ceremony was in one.

“I wasn’t even thinking about next steps,” Kyla said. “It was just figuring out what’s happening and if it’s even possible.”

“Wait, You’re the Groom?”

Garrett Kerr, from Eagle, Idaho, was driving out of the canyon after 10 days in the woods on an elk hunt. He had a big elk in the back of his pickup and had spotted helicopters overhead.

Then a man in a three-piece suit walked up to his truck.

“He’s asking, ‘Hey, do you know how long this closure is going to be? I’ve got to get to my wedding in an hour,'” Kerr told KTVB. “And I go, ‘Wait, you got to get to your wedding in an hour? You’re the groom.’ He goes, ‘Yeah.'”

Kerr knew no truck was getting through, so he made a promise: “We’re not going to be able to get through with the vehicles, but I’m going to get you to your wedding.”

A Pit Bike, an ATV and 16 Miles

Kerr had brought a small electric pit bike on his hunt to help haul his elk out of the woods. He also found a woman named Jessica who had an all-terrain vehicle and was willing to help.

According to People, Kyla rode on the ATV with Jessica and the wedding photographer. Erich climbed onto the back of Kerr’s pit bike, which was never meant for two riders. He had never been on a motorcycle in his life.

Kerr later joked that the two men, hanging onto each other, looked like a scene out of the movie “Dumb and Dumber.”

Together they worked their way around the crash, about 16 miles, back to South Fork Lodge.

The Hair Did Not Survive. The Wedding Did.

“If you know Erich, he has very pretty hair,” lodge co-owner Nick Gant told KTVB, joking that the groom’s wedding-day blowout suddenly made sense once he heard about the 16-mile ride.

“They also saw my hair all messed up and knew, like, ‘Oh, yeah, this was not probably planned,'” Kyla said.

She said none of it mattered. “It was a huge weight off of my shoulders, just knowing that I was there with [Erich],” she said. “And so if we were together, it didn’t really matter if we were late or not.”

“This Is My Wife”

At the altar, with the mountains behind them, Erich said everything clicked into place.

“I remember just, like, looking at her and seeing the mountain backdrop and just being like, ‘This is awesome! Like, this is my wife,'” he said. “We’re gonna live a long, awesome life together.”

Kerr, the man who simply refused to let a stranger miss his own wedding, said the day was a good sign for their marriage. “They’ll take those bumps in the road, and they’ll put a smile on their face, and they’ll get through it together,” he said.

Some people see a problem and keep driving. Others see a groom in a three-piece suit and say, “Hop on.”

Sources: KTVB (October 12, 2026), People, Sunnyskyz.