Bride’s dress and veil catch fire while walking down aisle: “in shock”

An artist hired to paint at a wedding ended up witnessing the dramatic moment the bride’s dress and veil caught fire.

Weddings can be expensive endeavors. According to the wedding website The Knot, in 2023, the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. was $35,000. Given that kind of outlay, it’s understandable that the bride and groom would want their big day to be as memorable as possible.

That’s where someone like Shauna Bailey comes in. Bailey is an artist living and working out of Newport Beach, California, as a live wedding painter. “I specialize in a fairly new type of wedding entertainment called ‘live wedding painting,'” Bailey told Newsweek.

“The general idea is to immortalize the feeling of a wedding day in a way that is slightly more ethereal than photography or videography, all while entertaining the guests. I’d compare it to having a pianist play live.”

She works with oil paint and spends around six to eight hours painting live during the day of the wedding, adding around 35 to 40 hours of in-studio detail over the weeks that follow.

It’s a job that requires her to be positioned at the heart of things. “I’m always trying to capture various moments of each wedding [on video] to use as a reference for the painting and for social media content, often to help depict the feel of the wedding and what ‘mood’ I’m trying to capture on canvas,” she explained.

That’s how she was able to capture footage of a shocking moment during the recent wedding of Luis and Lupe Quijano.

“Each wedding is different, but one of my favorite moments is watching the guests cheer as the new Mr. & Mrs. walk down the aisle,” Bailey said. “As I was recording this particular wedding, I started to sense tensions rise as the bride and groom made it down the aisle. From where I was standing, I wasn’t fully able to see that the bride’s train had caught on fire.”

Bailey’s footage shows Lupe Quijano’s dress seemingly engulfed in flames as the happy couple continue to walk down the aisle. “The moment felt almost like it happened in slow motion, and as the bride and groom and guests all seemed perfectly fine as it was happening,” Bailey said. “It’s a strange thing to see someone catching fire, but still smiling.”

Once it became clear the fire was getting bigger, Bailey stepped in with water but by then another vendor had located a fire extinguisher. Lupe Quijano told Newsweek about the surreal moment she realized she was on fire. “I looked back to see my friend running towards me and then I saw my dress was on fire and my veil was on fire,” she said.

Despite the gravity of the situation, she was able to stay calm throughout. That’s something she puts down to being a busy parent. “I have a very calm demeanor. Nothing really stresses me out. I have three kids—a two-year-old, a three-year-old and a soon-to-be five-year-old—after having kids back-to-back-to-back nothing really stressed you out.”

Lupe Quijano had another reason for feeling calm though. She said at least seven of the guests in attendance were from the military, while a firefighter was also present among their friends at the wedding. “Once I saw my brother-in-law [who is in the military] run down from the stage I thought ‘Oh he’s got this,'” she said. “I think I was just very trusting of everyone around me.”

She said the fire was caused by paper streamers that served as confetti as they walked down the aisle, landing on a series of candles that had also been positioned along the walkway.

“The ironic part is that I had just given my vows, which included a line about fire. Seconds later that’s when the first started,” she said. The couple are big fans of the reality series Survivor and included a line in their vows stating: “I promise to love you until my fire is put out.”

Despite her dress and veil incurring some damage, the bride was thankful for the responses of those in attendance. “I remember I could hear my mother-in-law walking behind me saying ‘I took off the veil, you’re good. You’re okay, nothing is going on. Keep walking,'” Lupe recalled.

“Everyone just jumped in right away to help put out the fire in their own way. I can’t stress how blessed we were.” Thankfully no one was seriously harmed with the paper confetti burning brightly but also quickly and the wedding celebrations resumed soon after.

“I would say this is definitely up there as the most unusual thing I’ve seen happen at a wedding, although almost every wedding has some form of drama,” Bailey said. She won’t be incorporating the fire into her final piece either.

“The way I see it, a fairy tale is about the happily ever after, regardless of the fiery dragons that are slayed along the way, so that’s the perspective I will be sticking with as I add the final details into their artwork.”

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