Groom grabs his ring as family flees house fire in Maryland the morning of his wedding

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something askew?

It's not supposed to be that way.

Matthew and Coral Denakis, her parents and other relatives - about 17 people in all including young children - escaped a house fire early Sunday in North Potomac, Maryland, just hours before the couple's wedding.

Members of the wedding party were in the house, too, according to Fox News.

Matthew grabbed his wedding ring and wallet as he fled the flames.

“I wake up, the room is filled with smoke, my mother-in-law screaming fire,” Matthew told Fox.

Coral "and her friend were running out of the house," he said.

The couple had driven to Maryland from Fort Benning in Georgia, where Matthew is stationed, on Saturday afternoon, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up by a friend.

The fire started around 2:30 a.m. Sunday and appears to have started in or around a recycling bin close to the garage, Pete Piringer, spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service, told WTOP radio in Washington, D.C.

Piringer tweeted that someone might have been smoking in the driveway but the investigation into the cause of the blaze continues. He estimated the fire caused about $450,000 worth of damage.

"Everybody was in shock, crying here and there, my wife, my son," the father of the bride, Eric Ben-Atar, told WJLA in D.C. "In five minutes, the whole thing was like in flames. Five minutes, the whole thing."

The groom told WJLA: “It’s not something you’d expect at 3 a.m. the morning of your wedding."

The first priority was to "make sure everyone got out okay, that everyone was safe,” Coral told WJLA.

She and Matthew had married previously in a courthouse ceremony, Fox News reported, but they planned a bigger to-do for family and friends on Sunday. Relatives had flown in from Israel and the Pacific Northwest to attend.

No one was injured in the fire. But according to the GoFundMe campaign, it destroyed the majority of the couple's wedding gifts and the belongings they had with them. Some of the wedding decorations went up in flames, too.

When firefighters heard that the couple's wedding was happening later in the day they asked if there was anything they needed from inside the burning house "to make the wedding happen," Matthew told Fox News.

Firefighters grabbed Matthew's Army uniform - undamaged except for a smoky smell.

“Luckily, the night before, we stored (Coral’s) wedding dress in my truck and it was saved,” he told Fox.

The families decided to go ahead with the wedding "to make a happy day out of a sad one," Coral told Fox News. "My siblings helped us all push through."

The couple's perseverance warmed the heart of fire department spokesman Piringer, who tweeted: "Can't put that flame out."