Weddings are complicated, expensive affairs. As a thirty-something whose friends are dropping like flies from the world of singledom, it's plain enough to see that planning a wedding takes a lot of time and mental energy for most of the happy couples involved.
One Wichita couple — of the woman-taps-foot-and-places-hands-on-hips expectantly, man-tugs-collar-and-changes-subject variety — thought they would skip the full-blown wedding hoopla. But did they do a quick Vegas wedding instead? No. They got married at a Suzuki dealership.
Jada Miller and Shane Starling went to Suzuki of Wichita together to buy a car and a truck. Their salesman, Randolph Warren, picked up on the fact that they were a couple and asked why they weren't married. Miller told Warren that Starlin wouldn't ask her, and Warren, an ordained minister, offered to perform a wedding ceremony at the dealership.
Starlin joked his way out of the awkward conversation by doing a Michael Jackson-style moonwalk away from Warren's desk, but when the couple returned to have a tire replaced, he finally relented and let Warren marry them.
They turned the showroom into a makeshift church for the ceremony, and the couple's wedding photos include that setting as well as several bewildered looking customers milling around in the background. The bride and her party wore pink t-shirts and the groom and his crew wore black ones. All had "League of Extraordinary Suzukians" printed on the front.
Most people don't associate Suzuki dealerships with marriage — or with selling a lot of cars, for that matter — but Warren does. He met his wife Ruth at Suzuki of Wichita four years ago.
This whole thing is cute and all, but it still makes me want to re-read a few choice chapters from What's the Matter with Kansas?. Also, what's more surprising: that a car dealer convinced these two people to marry, or that he talked them into buying two new Suzukis?
(Hat tip to Jayhawk Jake!)
Photo credit: Suzuki of Wichita