Newlywed Couple’s Party Bus Gets ‘Storrowed’ on Way to Wedding Reception

July 31, 2025

By Erin Logan

BOSTON (NBC Boston) — Steve and Varteni Akian say they are looking at this minor bump in the road as a true sign they are meant to be together.

Storrow Drive is a scenic parkway along the Charles River in Boston, but its low overpasses often get people quite literally stuck. Bostonians know it well, as does one newlywed couple, who got “Storrowed” on July 26 on the way to their wedding reception — and it was all caught on camera.

Steve and Varteni Akian say they are looking at this minor bump in the road as a true sign they are meant to be together.

“I just got ‘Storrowed’ on my wedding day. Like it was kind of cool, being from Boston” Steve Akian said with a laugh.

“He was like calm, cool, and collected,” Varteni Akian said of her groom. “And I was like OK. I think everything’s gonna be OK. We’re together. Everyone’s’ safe and we’re just gonna roll with it. This is part of our day.”

The Watertown couple says the “Storrowing” happened when they were on a party bus on the way to their wedding reception at the Venezia Boston from St. James Armenian Church — where the “I Do’s” went off without a hitch — and one of their groomsmen felt it, as the maid of honor happened to be recording a video.

“The party bus driver passed the clearance sign at first with the chains that hang down and then inched closer to the actual bridge on Storrow, where he did scrape the top of the party bus and proceeded to reverse,” Varteni Akian explained.

The bride adds that her maid of honor is from out of state and doesn’t quite get “Storrowing” like locals do, so she was rather confused when everyone was laughing when they got stuck.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the couple was only 10 minutes late to their reception, with quite a story to tell their guests on the dance floor.

The couple says they knew they were meant to make a grand entrance.

“Nothing will stop us, not a bridge, not a wall,” Steve Akian said. “It couldn’t have been more perfect. It added to it it. It added to it absolutely.”