Even in today’s world of elaborate wedding proposals videotaped by drones followed by carefully choreographed nuptials, area ministers have been thrown a few curves by wedding party requests or happenstance.

The Rev. Barb Love, pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, 557 Perry Highway, Harmony, said, “I had one wedding, the night before they came in and decorated the church with a very Egyptian theme.”

“The girls had snakes (bracelets) on the upper part of their arms,” Love said.

“I said to the bride ‘You do realize this is not very Christian,’ and she said, ‘We’re ‘Stargate’ fans.’”

Love, who estimated she’s performed 40 weddings in her 14 years as a minister, said she’s performed weddings beside a lake, at the top of a hill and on a golf course.

The Rev. Tara Lynn, pastor at Grace @ Calvary, 123 E. Diamond St., said she’s only officiated at about 10 weddings, a low number that hasn’t yielded any unusual requests or funny incidents.

But she added, “My husband (J.J. Lynn, a minister at a Sharpsburg church), he’s the one doing the backyard barbecue weddings.

“A friend told me about a wedding where the bride hung her gown on a fire sprinkler, and it broke and flooded the church and ruined the gown.

“Couples always forget or lose the wedding license,” she said. “The minister, of course, needs to send it in for the wedding to be official.”

The Rev. John Kuert, recently retired head pastor of Evangel Heights Christian Church, 120 Beale Road, Sarver, estimated he’s performed 200 weddings in a ministerial career that started in 1969.

Kuert said, “We did one wedding aboard the Gateway Clipper, and we did a wedding at Disney World. They paid our way to go to it.”

Sandy Kuert, the pastor’s wife, said, “It was at Disney World, but it wasn’t a Mickey Mouse wedding. The bride rode up in a glass carriage drawn by six white horses.”

“When people get married on the Gateway Clipper, they try to get married right at the Point, where the two rivers come together to form the Ohio. There’s a lot of nice symbolism in that,” said Sandy Kuert.

Her husband noted, “Of course, I try to work with couples, counseling them ahead of time, making it a special day.”

Cantor Michal Gray-Schaffer of B’nai Abraham Synagogue, 519 N. Main St., remembered one wedding where the bride bet on the weather and lost.

Gray-Schaffer said, “I had a wedding at the end of October outside, OK?”

“I get there and the bridesmaids are all in strapless gowns, and it’s I believe in the high 30s and it’s raining. At that point it was a gentle rain, but they had been out taking pictures, the poor guys,” she said.

Gray-Schaffer added the wedding was to take place outside under the traditional Jewish wedding canopy or chuppah on the grounds of a country club.

“The bride’s father had grown all the pumpkins and the flowers that decorated the aisles. He did not want to bring the decorations inside.”

Gray-Schaffer said the bride planned to ride about a hundred yards to her ceremony in a cart drawn by two horses.

“Then it starts to rain really, really hard,” Gray-Schaffer said. “The guests are standing under an enclosure waiting for the couple. The attendants from the country club are wiping the plastic chairs down with napkins. I’m standing in the chuppah waiting for the couple.”

“The guests are sopping wet, and the horses refused to pull the bride in the rain,” she said. “She has to walk when she wanted to ride. Her dress is getting wet.”

“By this time, the bride tells me ‘Make this as quick as possible.’ It is raining so hard all the words in my rabbi’s manual are running,” she said.

“We probably got it done in 10 or 15 minutes,” said Gray-Schaffer before the whole wedding party fled for drier surroundings.

It’s fortunate a rainout didn’t delay or cancel the wedding the Rev. Jim Kirk, pastor of Valencia Presbyterian Church, 80 Sterrett St., Valencia, officiated last summer at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

Kirk said the young couple, both avid baseball fans, used to follow the Pirates around the country.

“We performed the ceremony on top of the Pirates dugout,” said Kirk. “They invited 200 people and filled up three sections of the stands behind the dugout.”

A reception followed in the big club room at the stadium.

Kirk said, “What the Pirates do for weddings, they will play any kind of music that’s requested and they play it over the loudspeaker system at the stadium.”

“I had a microphone. I’m used to saying the words, but I’m not used to hearing the ceremony echoing over the loudspeaker system in stadium,” Kirk said.

If your wedding didn’t go exactly as planned, take heart, said Gray-Schaffer. There’s always a chance for a do-over.

She said one of the loveliest weddings she officiated was a 50th anniversary renewal of vows ceremony.

“She hadn’t had a very big ceremony when she got married,” Gray-Schaffer said. “So, she did everything. She wore a gown; her attendants were her grown daughters in gowns and her sons in tuxes. Her great-grandchildren were the ring bearer and the flower girl.”