Eight days into the government shutdown and Democrats and Republicans appear to be no closer to reaching a deal.
When Stefany Larrea stumbled upon pictures of Spence Cabin in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it felt like destiny. The bright pink and green exterior of the secluded river lodge perfectly matched her and her fiancé's wedding colors.
The couple, who live in Charleston, South Carolina, had been searching for a mountain destination to get married. This one was under budget. And it still had one weekend available in the fall, before it closed for the season.
"It was meant to be there," the 31-year-old remembered thinking when she booked the wedding venue in May. "It was either do it now or wait a whole year."
Then came the federal government shutdown on Oct 1. Suddenly, Larrea's wedding plans were thrown into limbo amid uncertainty over whether the National Park would keep the cottage open.
"The first day was just panic," Larrea said of the shutdown and her scramble to figure out whether her wedding would still be possible. "You start to realize that it might not pan out."
The shutdown has furloughed thousands of people, including National Park Service employees, and caused widespread confusion over whether publicly funded tourist destinations, such as national parks and Smithsonian Museums, will continue to operate.
Some closures have already begun to derail engagements, elopements, and weddings planned at popular attractions across the country. More are expected to follow as the shutdown stretches into its second week, with no clear end in sight.
'Impossible to recreate'
Jenn Maurer, an outdoor wedding photographer, rushed to find a new location to shoot a surprise engagement Oct. 8, after learning that White Sands National Park in New Mexico might be closed because of the shutdown.
The couple was traveling on vacation from the Midwest, and the groom had planned to pop the question against the desert sunset, Maurer said. But less than 24 hours before the shoot, conflicting reports online made it unclear whether the park would be open.
She opted to move the engagement to a nearby patch of unrestricted Bureau of Land Management territory. That turned out to be the right choice. The park was closed.
"It's been really confusing for couples who are planning these big events and trying to have this really special moment in a place that's meaningful to them," she said. "White Sands is one of those places that's incredibly unique and impossible to recreate."
Dropoff in photo shoot requests
In the nation's capital, some couples have canceled or rescheduled engagement photo sessions because of closures of popular museums and national monuments, including the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Archives Museum, U.S. National Arboretum, and the Washington Monument.
"We're just putting those sessions on hold, especially for the clients who have had their heart set on those locations," said Christian Nwosu, a wedding photographer in the area, noting that it is hard to find locations with a "similar vibe" to many of the shuttered museums.
"It makes it challenging to reschedule and then when those locations open back, I suspect that they'll be quite busy with both photographers and visitors," Nwosu said.
For photographers, the delays mean less income in the short term. Nwosu and other photographers in the Washington, DC area USA TODAY spoke with said they've seen a drop off in the number of people requesting photo shoots since the shutdown began.
For couples, canceled photo shoots can delay plans to send out save-the-date cards and cross of other milestones on their way to the altar, Nwosu said.
Anna Wright, another photographer in the DC area, said she's worried clients planning to elope at the DC War Memorial on the National Mall will need to change their plans as a result of the shutdown.
The couple is unlikely to reschedule their shoot, set to take place the week of Oct. 12, Wright said. But she's unsure if the park service will barricade the memorial and prevent them from using it, or if park personnel will be available to cordon off the area for the private event.
As of Oct. 9, the Parks Service said open-air memorials and monuments will remain open to the public.
"Everybody is just waiting to see," Wright said. "It's a frustrating cloud over their wedding, which should be very exciting."
The show goes on
Many National Parks, including the Great Smoky Mountains, announced plans to keep their gates open throughout the shutdown but said they will limit some services and close facilities, including bathrooms.
A group of nonprofits and local governments in Tennessee partnered together to keep the Smoky Mountains open during the shutdown through Oct. 19 with some restrictions. The longest shutdown in history occurred in 2018 and lasted 35 days. If this one were to last the same length, it would end Nov. 4.
For those hosting permitted events in the parks, the difficulty is figuring out exactly what parts of the parks are impacted.
In the early days of the shutdown, Larrea said she called Smoky Mountain National Park repeatedly to see if Spence Cabin would remain open for events. No one was there to answer her calls. And since she doesn't live locally, she hasn't been able to inspect the park.
"There were other brides on Facebook that were asking the same questions that I was asking and no one really seemed to have answers," she said.
Her efforts to create a Plan B also failed. With only three weeks until the wedding, most of the other venues in the area were already booked.
Still, Larrea is hopeful her wedding will go on as planned. She said she's heard rumors from others on Facebook that park rangers plan to honor special events permits throughout the shutdown. USA TODAY was unable to verify the accuracy of the information.
Larrea said she's choosing to have faith that the shutdown will end and the venue will be open. She and her fiancé, Dante, will make the six-hour drive from South Carolina to Tennessee on Oct. 21.
"I have his gut feeling that everything's going to be fine," she said. "I'm trusting that because otherwise I'd be losing my mind right now."