19-year-old bride dies on wedding day in Wisconsin house fire

The city of Reedsburg, Wisconsin mourns the death of a bride-to-be.

Paige Ruddy, 19, and her fiancé Logan Mitchell-Carter privately exchanged vows Monday and held a small, family-focused ceremony. per WMTV News. Tragically, however, their wedding ceremony on Tuesday at the Sauk County Courthouse never took place.

Ruddy was allegedly was pinned on the second floor of a house fire on Tuesday and died the next day of a brain hemorrhage from smoke inhalation. Local fire chief Craig Douglas told the branch that Ruddy couldn’t get through the smoke to safety.

“She was just a precious person,” Ruddy’s aunt told the outlet Thursday. “There was nothing about her not to like. She was that presence you never knew you would need in your life, but always needed.”

Douglas told the outlet that three other people were home at the time of the fire and were able to escape before firefighters arrived at the scene around 4 a.m. The fire chief added that there is currently no suspicion of third-party fault, while the cause of the fire remains unclear.

The house where Ruddy and Mitchell-Carter lived, which belonged to the groom’s grandparents, allegedly There were no working smoke detectors. Ruddy’s family has since urged others to ensure their own homes have the working gear.

Rudy graduated from Reedsburg Area High School in June 2022. She was planning to enroll in a veterinary technician program at Madison Area Technical College this fall — and hoped to earn an associate’s degree to help her future career.

“Paige has enough good qualities to fill a room” reads a GoFundMe Page created to help with medical expenses and funeral expenses. “Since she was a toddler, Paige was full of life, ready to help anyone with anything, and an absolute delight … She was kind, funny, and had tons of guts, according to her family.” GoFundMe, launched Thursday, has its $10,000 -Target already exceeded after almost 200 individual donations.

Lily Markgraf, who graduated high school alongside her, said Ruddy was the first girlfriend she made after moving to Reedsburg in seventh grade.

“She had a big caring heart,” Markgraf told WMTV News. “She was there for anyone who needed it, even if she didn’t like the person. If they needed her help, she would be there to help them. I will miss her for the rest of my life.”

Ruddy’s family plans to hold a private memorial service next week.