Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011

Military couple gets wedding bells, not bills

Wedding won through project

Constance Kruse wasn't expecting a marriage proposal at a frozen custard shop in St. Louis last Fourth of July.

Bryan Powell wasn't expecting his new fiancé to pull a green watermelon Ring-Pop from her purse and propose right back.

Neither was expecting a $70,000 wedding for free in Raleigh four months later, donated by Wake County vendors as part of Operation Marry Me Military in appreciation of Powell's service in the U.S. Air Force.

"It still kind of feels like a dream," Kruse said.

"We've had an entire city come together for us, and we weren't even part of that city. Raleigh feels like home now."

Operation Marry Me Military is a new project founded by Oak Island Photography and Weddings in southeastern North Carolina.

The project aims to provide free North Carolina weddings to military members each Veteran's Day in thanks for their service.

At the top of the CAPTRUST Tower in North Hills on Friday, Kruse and Powell joined four other military couples around the state in tying the knot at weddings where everything from the bouquet to the banquet was donated by local event-planners and vendors.

Applications were due by the end of July. Project founder Alecia Geddings received more than 100.

The application from Powell and Kruse was one of the last to come in - Kruse found out about the contest online the day before the deadline, right before Powell was deployed to Puerto Rico.

Powell and Kruse needed the contest to come through. She was living in St. Louis, he was stationed 600 miles away at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ga.

They considered themselves lucky to see each other twice a month.

Their entire courtship took place long-distance. They met when Kruse needed a date for her cousin's wedding in 2009 in order to avoid an ex-boyfriend who was also attending.

As a friend of Kruse's cousin, Powell was drafted as her date.

The first time they met, Kruse was shy - "not at all in character for me," she laughs. The two didn't really hit it off until three months later, at a barbecue in Memphis.

That was followed by months of long phone calls.

She liked his intelligence, his sense of fun and his romantic streak.

He liked that he could be himself around her - their conversations took away the stress of pilot training school.

The couple's original wedding plans were for something small and basic and far in the future, to give them time to save money.

With their limited funds, a honeymoon would have to wait. Then the call came from Operation Marry Me Military in August, asking whether the couple and 50 guests could be ready for a November wedding in Wake County on Veterans Day - all expenses paid.

Well, yes.

Yes, they could.

Powell and Kruse had never been to Raleigh.

Their planned three-day visit in October stretched to a week. They went to the N.C. State Fair, ate at local restaurants and fell in love with the city.

Powell, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, said the generosity has been overwhelming.

"This is probably the biggest outpouring of appreciation I've ever encountered," Powell said.

"It's phenomenal to see so many people so supportive, because for me and the people I work with, being in the military is no big deal - it's just what we do."

More than two dozen local vendors donated everything from music to flowers to photography services. Wedding plans were handled by The Perfect Plan and Amazing Grace Event Management.

"It's been a lot of work, but it's really fulfilling to give all that back," said Tia McLaurin of The Perfect Plan.

The project's ultimate goal is to have an all-expenses-paid wedding for one military couple in all 100 counties in North Carolina, Geddings said.

This year, there were two in Brunswick County, one in Onslow, one in Wake and one in New Hanover.

But with the level of local interest generated in the project's first year, Geddings expects the project to grow fast.

Powell and Kruse are just glad Geddings got it off the ground when she did.

The couple will stay at an inn on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville for three days after the wedding as a mini-honeymoon.

Their plans after that?

"Definitely something tropical," Powell said.