Darts + Love = Wedding

This may not be the way I would do it, but....
Couple tie knot at dart tourney
By KAY HIVELY / Special to the Daily News

NOEL -- Rob Manning and Gina Edington got married Friday night at the Noel Rafting Co. Campground in Noel.

The wedding was set for 6 p.m.

5:30 p.m. - Two friends, Janet Wesley and Kim Jackson, decorated the 'altar' where the vows would be taken.

5:40 p.m. - The bride came to look at the decorations which were strung from a message board and a dart board down to the spot where the couple would stand to take their vows.

5:45 p.m. - The groom brought the 'paperwork' to the pastor so the legal business could be taken care of.

5:50 p.m. - The groom was hunting someone to use his camera to take pictures of the wedding.

5:52 p.m. - The groomsmen and the groom removed their T-shirts in front of the wedding guests and donned T-shirt tuxedos.

5:55 p.m. - A groomsman brought his 'boom box' for hard rock wedding music.

6 p.m. - The bride, in a lovely dress, entered the tent and took her place beside the groom.

6:15 p.m. - The couple are pronounced man and wife and make their first 'dart throw' together as a married couple.

6:15 p.m. - The bride and the groom enjoyed the traditional kiss at the altar.

And then it was time to congratulate the newlyweds and return to the dart games.

After meeting at the 2004 Chicken Coop Darts Tournament, Rob Manning and Gina Edington chose the 2005 tournament as the site for their wedding. The ceremony, performed by Rev. Rick Thomas of Jay, Okla., was held under the big tent where the dart tournament is staged.

Competition in the tournament continued right up to the time of the wedding. Then, as the wedding began, competitors joined friends and families of the bride and groom around one of the dart boards for the wedding service.

Encouraging the couple to love and respect each other and to let God be the center of their household, Rev. Thomas united the couple, then stepped aside as the newly-weds each threw a dart before the final kiss.

Rev. Thomas admitted the wedding was a bit unusual for him. He normally doesn't perform a ceremony where most of the guests are holding bottles of beer, and he meets the bride and groom only minutes before the appointed hour. But the unorthodox circumstances did not hamper the happiness of the occasion.

Prior to their wedding, both the bride and groom were excited, nervous and happy to see so many friends and family members. Even though the temperature was about 87 degrees and the campground was somewhat dusty, nothing seemed to bother the happy couple.

During the ceremony, the nervous groom wiped drops of sweat from his nose and chin, and the weepy bride wiped tears from her cheeks.

In the end, it was a lovely and happy event, and everyone who attended will probably remember this wedding better than they remember their own. But a wedding is a wedding. If you have a minister, a beautiful bride, a proud groom, and some spoken vows, that's all it takes to make two people very happy."

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I wonder if there was a blind draw doubles Tourney during the reception