LOGANSPORT, Ind. (April 9, 6:29 a.m. PDT) - It
was a wedding where guests tossed sheets of fabric softener instead of rice.
But Carolyn Gross and John Oehlert wanted to
exchange vows where their courtship began: at a coin-operated laundry
facility.
About 25 people attended Monday's ceremony
at the High Street Laundry in Logansport, about 70 miles north of
Indianapolis. Some watched while folding clothes.
The "Wedding March" played on a cassette
amid the swishing sounds of washers and the hum of spinning dryers. The
scent of detergent filled the air.
"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully
wedded wife?" asked the Rev. Jim Sparks, projecting his voice over the
clatter of a change machine.
At one point, a laundry cart rattled as a
young woman wheeled it past the couple, who stood between two carts
decorated with flowers.
"This is where it kind of started," Gross
said. "He kept asking me out, and I kept telling him no, but he wore me
down."
Three months later, Oehlert proposed.
"We knew each other for about 12 years,"
Oehlert said. "I thought she worked here."
The owners of the laundry, Brad and Sheri
Deardorff, were thrilled that the couple chose to hold their nuptials at
their business.
"They asked me about having it here," Brad
Deardorff said. "I said, 'Hey, it's your day.'"
