DANVILLE, Ill. — Wedding days don’t always go as planned. Just ask newlyweds David and Chelsey Sharp.
Their big day almost didn’t go at all.
The young Georgetown couple both agree one of the most vivid memories of their wedding day Friday will always be “that sign.”
Chelsey, 22, said she wanted to cry when she and David, 21, and almost a dozen family members and friends walked up to the front door of the Vermilion County Courthouse, where they had scheduled their nuptials two weeks earlier, and saw a closed-for-the-holiday sign.
Weddings at the courthouse are scheduled on Fridays, but last Friday was Lincoln’s birthday, a legal holiday for the county, so the courthouse was closed.
Holding her red and white bouquet of flowers and the bottom of her dress to keep it from dragging in the snow, Chelsey said a friend tried to calm her down to stave off the tears and keep her makeup from smearing.
But Chelsey said she saw “that sign” as a sign.
“I thought it wasn’t meant to be,” Chelsey said.
Both she and her new husband are hearing impaired, and she said that they have conquered a lot of obstacles in their two-year relationship.
David said he was just mad, especially when he saw the tears in Chelsey’s eyes. He said he just wanted to make her happy.
“He hates to see me cry,” Chelsey said.
All but four people in their wedding party, including an interpreter, had taken time off from their jobs and traveled a few hours to be there, so rescheduling would have been difficult.
A friend suggested they go to city hall a block away to see if anyone could help.
As they walked over, Chelsey said she kept thinking how much she did not want to postpone this special day, especially because she had kept her dress hidden from David until that morning.
“I was thinking that I wasted my time putting on this dress,” she said.
It was the noon hour and the front doors of the municipal building were locked, but Angie Jestis, a rehab specialist in the community development department, saw the group and walked outside to see what they needed.
And that’s when city Comptroller Gayle Brandon saw Chelsey standing outside in her wedding dress talking to Jestis and went out to see what was happening.
Communicating through the interpreter, Brandon invited the whole party inside and started calling ministers.
After a few calls, she found minister Tommie Reed, a former city alderman, at home, told him the situation, and he agreed to be there within a half hour to marry the couple at city hall.
Reed said he’s married many couples in many settings and is accustomed to calls at all hours from people in need. He said he was happy Brandon had called on him.
“I was very glad to do it. It made their day, and it made my day, too,” he said. “It was a beautiful occasion.”
When Brandon told David and Chelsey she had a minister on the way, Chelsey said she no longer thought it wasn’t meant to be.
“It was more a blessing in disguise,” Chelsey said. Her father-in-law had really wanted them to be married in a church by a minister, she said, rather than at the courthouse by a judge.
At 1:15 p.m., the ceremony that was, then wasn’t, was on again.
Through the interpreter, Reed married David and Chelsey in a small conference room surrounded by their family and friends and several city workers who had heard about the impromptu ceremony.
“It was something,” said Brandon, who got a lot of “thank-yous” and a big hug from a member of the wedding party.
“Just to see the look on their faces made it all worthwhile.”
Chelsey said it definitely would not have been a very happy Valentine’s Day Sunday if Brandon and others hadn’t come to the rescue.
“I probably would have been angry for the whole weekend,” she said.
The couple wonder why they weren’t contacted about the courthouse being closed Friday, but they have no hard feelings and actually see the turn of events as a new sign of good luck.
“It will be a fun story to tell our children someday,” Chelsey said.
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services
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