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The bride, in a long Maple Leafs jersey-dress, glided to centre ice on skates. The groom, also on skates, wore a bright yellow blazer sporting the colours of the Boston Bruins, his favourite National Hockey League team.

Other members of the wedding party also wore skates.

So did the the man who officiated at the ceremony.

A large crowd watched yesterday as the unusual wedding ceremony played out on the ice at Dorchester Arena.

The wedding guests, seated in chairs on the ice and in the arena stands, erupted in cheers after Dan Stratton of Dorchester and Darla Goulden of London exchanged their wedding vows and kissed at centre ice.

While waiting for the ceremony to begin, guests in the stands performed the wave and clapped along to a recording of Stompin' Tom Conners singing The Hockey Game.

No penalties were called by Wayne Prevett of London, who officiated the non-denominational service wearing a referee's jersey.

It goes without saying the bride and groom are big-time hockey fans.

She cheers for the Maple Leafs, he for the Bruins.

"This is a match made in hockey heaven," said best man Barry Christian, from the Harrietsville area.

"Dan and Darla love hockey," said Christian.

"They play hockey, they watch hockey. They are big, big fans."

Like other male members of the wedding party, Christian was dressed in a Don Cherry-style checked jacket.

The groom said it was a long-time dream to have this kind of unusual wedding.

"I always wanted to get married on the ice," he said.

"I wanted to do something different."

Stratton said he was lucky to meet a woman willing to go along with his idea.

The couple met at their former place of work slightly more than two years ago.

Prevett, of Kettle Creek Weddings in London, said this was the first time he's married anyone on the ice.

But he thought the on-ice nuptials were a great idea.

"I think this is really neat," he said.

"I think it is really positive that they can do something that suits them. I like the flexibility of it and it's a lot of fun.

"They should have fun, right?"

In his message during the ceremony, a segment he dubbed Coach's Corner, Prevett urged the couple to play as a team during their marriage.

"You are not opponents, even though you love different teams," he said.

Cheers erupted again as Prevett pronounced the couple husband and wife.

After the ceremony, Dan and Darla joined other members of the wedding party for a skate.

Darla said she was delighted with the ceremony.

"Everything went so well. It was wonderful."

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The second time around

By Jean-Charles Lanciault
jlanciau@uwo.ca

More Londoners are choosing original, less formal wedding ceremonies in smaller venues to celebrate what is for many their second time down the aisle.

"(Weddings) are downsizing for simplicity reasons, and for financial reasons," said Wayne Prevett, an Officiant who operates Kettle Creek Weddings with his wife, Rosanne.

Prevett, who has been marrying couples for more than 20 years, said smaller venues in London are hard to find. That's why he founded The Wedding Room, a room in the Idlewyld Inn that can fit up to 20 guests. About 15 couples a month have been married there since it opened six months ago, Prevett said.

Prevett thinks weddings are smaller because many couples are getting married for the second time and don't want to have a big party again.

Smaller wedding parties are not the only change the industry is seeing. Couples tying the knot are not getting any younger.

According to Statistics Canada, the marriage rate for men ages 35 to 39 increased in 2002 -- the latest data available - but decreased for all other age groups. The number of marriages for baby boomers in their 40s and 50s also has increased.

Marriage rates for women in the 35 to 39 and 60 to 69 age groups have increased as well.

Two-thirds of weddings Lori Siska, a non-denominational Officiant in London, does every year are for people who are older and who have been there before. "The majority of my couples are on average 30 or older," she said. "I sometimes see couples who have been living together five or 10 years and suddenly decide to get married. It's just that connection that they need."

Siska also noted that weddings are getting smaller with an average of 150 to 200 guests at most and as few as 20 in some cases.

Cathy Cloes, part owner of The Wedding and Party Place, said about one in every eight weddings her company organizes is larger than 150 people. She said she has also noticed many couples are at their second weddings.

Smaller ceremonies allow couples to be more flexible as to where and when they want to get married and some want to do it when it feels right to do so.

"One guy literally got off his tractor, went into the house, said to his girlfriend 'let's get married today,' " Prevett said. "They drove to city hall, got a license, called us, came in to our office and got married. It all happened within about a five-hour period. We've seen it all," he said.

Couples are also seen to be moving away from the church to celebrate their union. "Ninety-eight per cent of the weddings we do are outside of churches," Prevett said.

Some couples prefer the fresh air to exchange their vows. "Probably 90 per cent of what I do is outside," Siska said. "I have done weddings at inns, hotels, cottages, backyards," she explained. "I did one last year in February on a farm in the snow at sunset. They had everybody dressed warm enough for it."

The wedding parties also seem to break with tradition, and that's good news for businesses catering to newlyweds.

"Martha Stewart has taken a toll on the (traditional) wedding," said Joanna Radaczynski, manager at Ferreira Party and Wedding Centre. "Little details come in to play. Added themes make it into something that is not just white," she said. "I like to do weddings now because (they're) different all the time."

Cloes has also seen many theme weddings emerge, such as Valentine's Day weddings, Halloween weddings, where people dress up, Mardi Gras, where guests wear masks, and even medieval celebrations, where the groom wears chain mail. "(There's now) just about anything you can think of," she said.

To have something totally different, and maybe not have to make difficult decisions about the guest list, couples are getting married abroad more regularly as well.

"They'll come back and have more or less of a large party as opposed to a really traditional wedding," Cloes said. "Often, there will be no head table and no speeches. They'll invite their friends to celebrate with them after the actual wedding. It's more popular than ever before to go and get married in a tropical destination."

Even if more couples opt for less traditional forms of weddings, according to Statistics Canada, 71 percent of Canadians got married on a Saturday in 2002. In the same year, three-fifths of marriages took place during the summer months.

Radaczynski also thinks traditional weddings are not completely out. Many younger couples - who are getting married for the first time - like to have larger parties.

Families of European descent, such as Italians, Portuguese or Greeks, to name a few, still like to go all out and have 500 to 600 of their closest friends there for their special day, Radaczynski explained.

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Couple faces off at centre ice

By Cory Habermehl

Dan Stratton had a dream.

"I always told my friends, even back in high school, that I'd be married on the ice," he says.

And on Jan. 17, 2004, Stratton saw that dream come true. Amid waving foam fingers and the sounds of Let's Get Ready to Rumble, he and his fiancée Darla Goulden were married on the ice at the arena in Dorchester, Ont.

The $10,000 ceremony - complete with Don Cherry-inspired tuxedos and a combination wedding dress/Toronto Maple Leafs jersey - was a far cry from the bride's first wedding.

"My first one was your normal, traditional wedding," Darla says. "But all those reality shows where they have all the crazy weddings sort of got me thinking."

It's a thought process that's becoming common among couples looking to get married. Unconventional ceremonies are on the rise, says a veteran wedding Officiant.

"The more people think about it, the more they realize they can do anything they want," says Wayne Prevett, Officiant for the Stratton's' one-of-a-kind ceremony and owner of Kettle Creek Weddings.

The 44-year-old ordained minister started his London-based wedding planning company six years ago and has since officiated several unusual ceremonies.

"I conducted a wedding on a ball diamond right at home plate," he says. "The couple had met there, and everyone wore their uniforms."

Prevett has also conducted several weddings on cliffs overlooking Lake Huron. He performed a ceremony surrounded by bikers at a London motorcycle shop and has been contacted by a Canadian Forces member who wanted to get married as he and his bride jumped from a plane.

"People start to ask themselves, 'Can I really do that?'" Prevett says. "The answer is, yes you can."

Managers of the Ice Hotel in Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, Que. have also noticed increased demand for unique weddings during the hotel's five years of operation. With a wedding chapel that boasts a large dome and steeple both made entirely of ice, the hotel offers everything from ice cups and ice wine to fur capes and coat rentals for dog-sled rides after the ceremony.

"Increasingly, people look to add an unusual element to their special day and choose a destination wedding," said Jacques Desbois, CEO of the Ice Hotel. The hotel has planners to help couples with all the arrangements.

The hockey-loving Strattons, however, planned their own wedding, working with their Officiant to create a ceremony that rigidly adhered to their theme - the main reading was a poem on winning and losing written by Ken Dryden.

An avid hockey fan and player, Prevett conducted the Strattons' centre-ice ceremony dressed in full referee attire.

"Fans were doing the wave in the stands and I even got booed when I came on the ice," he says.

The groomsmen wore jackets of varying plaid colours, while the groom sported a solid gold jacket, in support of his favourite team, the Boston Bruins.

As for the custom wedding dress, a child's Maple Leafs jersey was used to help create a look suitable for the occasion.

"My mother-in-law made it for me," says Darla. "She cut all the stuff off the jersey and put it on the dress. It was really awesome."

Guests sat at centre ice facing the wedding party, all of whom wore skates, while Dorchester residents who had heard of the unusual ceremony filled the stands.

The couple even invited Don Cherry.

"He had been signing autographs at Wal-Mart in December before the wedding," says Darla. "I went down with an invitation."

Cherry was unable to attend, but his interest had been piqued. He featured the ceremony the following week on his Coach's Corner segment of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.

The Stratton's kept with the hockey theme for their honeymoon, attending a Leafs - Bruins game in Toronto exactly one month after their wedding.

"We wore our wedding outfits and were recognized by lots of people," Darla says.

And while she was excited about the recognition, she was disappointed with the game's outcome, which went in favour of her husband's team.

"It was a blowout," Dan says. "It was great - I really rubbed it in."

But despite their differing opinions on which team to cheer for, they have no differences when it comes to their marriage.

"We cheer for different teams in hockey, but we're definitely on the same team in our marriage."

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