An article in the paper about my friends Martin and Deb
Couples exchange vows and rings at the rink
Marriage can be like a hockey game -- but for two couples tonight, it'll be after a hockey game.
Julius Johnson and Veronica Miller of Horn Lake and Erich Doernbach and Donna McClellan of Tunica will get married on the ice after the RiverKings game against the Odessa Jackalopes at DeSoto Civic Center.
One of the couples, Martin and Deborah Fletcher, who live in Midtown Memphis, were married after a RiverKings hockey game 15 years ago.
"True love works," RiverKings spokesman Gene Szucs remarked Wednesday as workers painted the ice pink for end-of-the-week festivities, including a breast cancer fund-raiser. "Look at the Fletchers. Get married at a hockey game."
Miller and Johnson, both 34, knew each other as students at Lanier Junior High School in Memphis
She was a majorette. He was in the band. He had a crush on her. She just wanted to be friends.
"She had too many other men chasing her," said Johnson, a chef for a golf club. "I couldn't get to her."
But when they ran into each other at a night club 18 months ago, Miller took an instant interest in her former admirer.
It was her birthday. He asked for her number. Then she waited. He didn't call for a week.
"I was kind of upset I didn't hear from him," said Miller, an IRS tax examiner.
Previously divorced and a mother of two, Miller liked Johnson's stability.
"He knew what he wanted and had goals. He was working for his own restaurant."
He told her: "I'm not going to let you go," and they began talking about when to marry.
Then Miller read about the offer of a RiverKings wedding on ice. She pointed it out to Johnson, just for a laugh.
"I thought it was so funny because I was trying to imagine a bride and groom on skates trying to get married," she said. "He read it. He said, 'Hold up. That sounds pretty cool.'"
"I like to do things different," Johnson said.
He will wear a tuxedo and pink tie. She will wear a floor-length pink gown, no veil.
Nix the skates. None of the participants will wear them for liability reasons, Szucs said.
Doernbach, 32, and McClellan, 25, met at a restaurant where she was a waitress and he was a customer. Like Johnson, Doernback likes to do things out of the ordinary.
"I asked her to marry me at Disney World," Doernbach said.
The Fletchers were introduced to each other by a mutual friend in August 1990.
On Tuesday, they celebrated 15 years together.
"The secret to it is working a different shift," said Deborah Fletcher, 50, an evening shift Smith & Nephew employee.
"It definitely keeps the peace," said Martin Fletcher, 44, a day shift senior procurement clerk at UT-Memphis.
The couple, season ticket holders, were friends for a long time before the relationship seamlessly evolved into a romance. At a hockey game about three years after they met, he made an off-the-cuff remark.
"I looked over at her and said, 'Why don't we get married at a game?"
A RiverKings public relations guy overheard the comment. He got their names and "Wedding Rings and RiverKings" was in motion. The Fletchers married after the RiverKings defeated Fort Worth at the Mid-South Coliseum 3-1.
Unlike at the Fletchers' first wedding, the RiverKings won't be on the ice and they won't be holding hockey sticks up so the bride can pass under them, but the goal will be decorated in flowers.
A minister/radio personality will perform the ceremony with assistance from DeSoto County Justice Court Judge Karen Sanders.
It's all legal, assured Szucs. The RiverKings required copies of marriage licenses to be submitted and any blood tests to be taken.
Based on their prior ceremony on ice, the Fletchers expect a little levity among a crowd of 3,500 to 4,000 people.
One man, Deborah Fletcher recalled, screamed out to the couple: "'There's still time! Don't do it!' His wife hit him in the face with a purse."
"It was pretty good," said Martin Fletcher, chuckling. "It lightened the mood."
-- Toni Lepeska: (662) 996-1409
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