Navy Seals are used to overcoming adversity. The wives of Navy Seals are used to sacrificing for their country.

Engaged, but not rushing to the altar, Timothy Schlappi and Lacey Vollentine were content to save their money toward the type of wedding most Certified Wedding Planners are used to planning. During a skydiving exercise last week, fate, and a parked car, intervened.

Timothy, a 13-year Navy veteran with over 800 jumps, had misjudged a turn when landing his parachute, violently hit the car, and broke his heel, neck, and both legs. When Lacey got the news, she jumped on a flight from Virginia to Arizona, bypassed the baggage carousel, and arrived bedside just before her fiancé went in to surgery.

Overcome with the desire to marry each other and not willing to wait until their planned 2010 ceremony, the couple agreed to take the plunge immediately. The only problem was Timothy couldn’t leave his bed. And they were on the other side of the country from their home. Oh, and they didn’t have a wedding license, an officiant, a wedding party, wedding attire, or any of the other “necessities”.

Over the next couple days, everything they needed was pulled together by a determined bride and her new friends at the Maricopa County Medical Center and the Forever Courage House, a home for families of long-term patients.

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Schlappi

One manager of the family care residence worked through the night to create a two-tier wedding cake. Another manager, a former Marine, arranged for the marriage license to be delivered to the hospital. The medical center made their staff chaplain available to officiate.

In the meantime, Lacey picked up her dress at a local David’s Bridal shop and found a suitable hair stylist nearby. Under orders from the US Navy, a shipmate sourced a Men’s Wearhouse for an appropriate shirt and tie for the groom, with Timothy’s doctor fashioning the knot. The fellow Seal even shaved his friend for the ceremony.

For a total of $400 and a lot of love, the wedding was set and hospital staff was ushered into Timothy’s room. A doctor played Lonestar’s “Amazed” on his cell phone and the chaplain pronounced them husband and wife.

“We may not have had the dream wedding that we wanted, but this far surpasses anything that I could have come up with in my own mind,” said the new Mrs. Schlappi.

“It took all the pain away,” said Mr. Schlappi.

For over 60 years, Florence and John Smatusik shared more than a marriage. They shared a dream. Like so many Certified Wedding Planner clients, the couple wanted to be married in their faith. They wanted a Catholic wedding ceremony.

They met 70 years ago, when they were both 12. At 18, John gave Florence an engagement ring on a local “kissing bridge”. Two years later, they were married by the justice of the peace at a town hall civil ceremony.

For the next six decades, the pair raised three children and enjoyed otherwise fulfilling lives, except the overwhelming desire to have a church wedding never died. Last Friday, with family and friends in attendance, John and Florence, both now 82, in wheelchairs and in failing health, were remarried in a Catholic ceremony at the care center where they both now reside.

“I waited a long time,” said Florence. “I feel like Cinderella.”

Sometimes in life, we can make our own happy endings.

Florence and John Smatusik

Last fall, we wrote about the dangers of aligning your business with unscrupulous wedding vendors. In New Jersey, thousands of bridal couples spent years in limbo awaiting their wedding photos while a legal battle against their photography company, Celebration Studios, moved through the courts.

A state superior court judge has ordered the defunct company to pay over $3 million in fines and restitution and directed the state to return wedding photographs and videos seized as evidence in the case to the long suffering brides and grooms.

The company’s owner, currently bankrupt, was said to have committed over 1,800 violations of the Consumer Fraud Act. While some of his former customers will finally receive their wedding photos, it seems that none of them may ever see a penny of the judgment.

Cases like this reinforce for every Certified Wedding Planner the importance of verifying a preferred vendor’s credentials and business history. Although it can be impossible to foresee the events that led to Celebration Studios failure, due diligence can minimize the risk to your clients and your business reputation.

There are some things even the best Certified Wedding Planner cannot anticipate.

On Friday, the soon-to-be Adam and Julie Hatfield were posing for pre-ceremony pictures at Riverside Park in La Crosse, Wisconsin when they heard a cry for help. A young girl had fallen into the Mississippi River and was followed by her distraught grandfather.

Without hesitation, Adam, Julie, and their wedding photographer sprang into action to help rescue the pair and still make it to their wedding on time, although their attire was a little worse for wear. Alas, Adam’s pants were torn in the process. Hopefully, their wedding planner had an emergency kit at the ready.

As for the bride and groom, the park where Adam first proposed to Julie is now also the venue where they celebrated their wedding day by saving the lives of two strangers.

Not a bad way to begin a marriage.

Adam and Julie Hatfield

Tomorrow night, cable television adds yet another entry to the wonderfully ubiquitous wedding-related programming that has been building over the past several years. “Masters of Reception”, airing the series premiere on Discovery’s TLC network at 10pm, stars Robert and Jerry Frungillo, New Jersey caterers-extraordinaire for the last three decades.

Series Premiere Airs August 18 at 10pm on TLC

According to the TLC website, “The Frungillos tend to every single detail of a wedding and ensure that the bride and groom are completely satisfied on their big day. But managing four different facilities and up to 10 weddings at once will naturally lead to drama.”

As any Certified Wedding Planner knows, managing multiple bridal clients on a single day can lead to triumph or heartache. Drama on television is good. Drama for your clients is not.

The Masters of Reception, Staffed for Drama

One of our favorite sources for all things marital is the nationwide team of experts employed by the Examiner.com. An article this week by San Francisco Examiner wedding and marriage expert Elizabeth Oakes opened our eyes to a type of wedding most people training to become a Certified Wedding Planner would never dream of planning; a ceremony  with one or both of the betrothed missing.

The Bride and (a lifesize picture of) The Groom

 A proxy marriage, in which either the bride or groom is not physically present at the ceremony, is apparently legal in at least five states. In 2003, a Russian Air Force Colonel married his fiancée via satellite video while he orbited the Earth on the International Space Station and she was surrounded by 200 guests at the Space Center in Houston, Texas.

While California, Texas, Kansas, and Colorado allow one stand-in participant, Montana stands out with the dubious double proxy marriage law. Another 2003 wedding featured an Army Private stationed in Iraq and his Italian fiancée in a ceremony in Kalispell that neither attended.

As with many customs and laws, proxy marriages did not originate with the needs of American servicemen and Russian cosmonauts. Legal in Mexico and Paraguay, marriage by proxy was a common practice for European nobility. Napoleon Bonaparte married the Archduchess of Austria, Marie Louise, by proxy in an effort to legitimize his empire and produce an heir.

Destination Wedding Venue

 In the late 15^th century, the Tudor monarchy sought to correct a legitimacy problem of its own by arranging for the marriage of two-year-old Arthur, Prince of Wales, and three-year-old Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon as part of the Treaty of Medina Del Campo. When the young couple was 12 and 13, they were formally wed by proxy.

Should you have the occasion to plan a wedding ceremony a spouse or two short of a couple, know that you are partaking in a long-held and seldom used tradition that has seen vows spoken from space, in a warzone, and in royal courts throughout history. Challenge your clients to do more than just phone theirs in.

Our apologies in advance to William Shakespeare, but this wedding news story brought out our romantic side.

Two households, both alike in history,
In fair Mesopotamia, where we lay our scene,
From recent grudge break to new unity,
Where civil blood turns civil hands clean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
Pairs of star-cross’d lovers pledge their life;
Whole governmental payouts overthrow
Do with their vows bury their parents’ strife.
The joyful blessings of their inter-sect love,
And the continuance of extremist rage,
Which, but the people’s will, nought could remove,
Is now returning to this war torn stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

“Oh Muhanad, Muhanad! Wherefore art thou Muhanad?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Shiite.”

Muhanad and Samma, among 1,700 Sunni/Shiite newlywed couples helping to heal Iraq's civil discord.

Jill and Kevin and their Dancing Wedding Party

Two weeks and over 14 million YouTube views later, newlyweds Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz have become famous for their unique and inspirational wedding dance processional. In a twist worthy of their gyrating church entrance, they have responded to their fame and the backlash for resurrecting infamous batterer Chris Brown’s career by using his song “Forever” in their video into a force in the battle against domestic violence.

Sheila and Paul Wellstone

 Through their new website, the couple is accepting donations for The Sheila Wellstone Institute, a program founded by the surviving sons of Sheila Wellstone and Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone in honor of their parent’s commitment to the elimination of family violence. 

After sitting down with The Today Show, ticking off Good Morning America, making Google richer, ignoring the media, and being flattered down under, the besieged couple has decided to turn the spotlight onto a very worthy cause.