ERIN – The happiest drive through in the world on Friday afternoon wasn't at a fast-food restaurant, it was at Erin’s town hall as its “drive through marriage” event ended up being a huge success.
To address a backlog of people looking for a bare-minimum ceremony to get legally married, the Town of Erin held a drive through marriage event at its town hall property on Friday afternoon.
Couples with a valid marriage license were able to drive-up, wait their turn, do some paperwork with town clerk Lisa Campion who was acting as the officiant for the event and just like that, they would be married in just a few minutes. They didn’t even have to exit the car if they didn’t want to.
The oddity of getting married this way and its Las Vegas quality wasn’t lost on some couples.
“We want Elvis!” said April Rostron.
Rostron married Brian Allison, both of Fergus, after being together for 18 years. The couple said they had tried to get married a few times in the past but Sept. 9, 2022 ended up being their day.
“This came up and we thought ‘hey, let’s do this, sounds neat,” Allison said.
For one couple, it was a bittersweet affair as Darren McPherson and Tina Moze recently had to put down their pug Dakota due to cancer. They had a picture of Dakota so she could be there in spirit while they got married after nine years together.
Getting married this way also meant the couple could focus on things more important to them as people in their 50s.
“We didn’t want to spend big money paying off a wedding for the next five years, we wanted to save towards retirement,” McPherson said.
“For everything we’ve gone through all year, it was just to do something special for ourselves without the stress of having to have the big wedding,” Moze added.
All the couples interviewed had been together for many years. To Santino Conte, who watched his mom Laura Conte get married to Mark Bakker after 16 years, he said he thinks this kind of wedding is good for people in that situation.
“You don’t need a big massive ceremony, they’ve been together so long, it’s like they already are married,” Santino said.
When asked the previous day, town spokesperson Lavina Dixit said they had expected about five couples to come through but there were already six cars by the time 1 p.m. rolled around and 16 couples were married through the event.
Campion said if there’s a good response to this event, it’s possible another one could be held in the future.
“We love it every single time someone wants to get married at town hall, we’re just happy to be part of their special day,” Campion said.
