More on the lucky date July 7th

Ok, I admit I'm on vacation and while at the laundrymat I can't bring myself to comment on suicide bombings in Iraq and how perhaps there may be a shift in the U.S. Congress to try another bill with a date certain for troop withdrawl...

...instead I will ask, "Perform any weddings yesterday?"

This from the Star and Tribune...

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To have and to hold, from this (lucky) day forward.

Saturday signaled good fortune and numerous nuptials. Has anyone saved the date for 8/08/08?

By Gail Rosenblum, Star Tribune

Last update: July 07, 2007 – 10:16 PM

Katie Strong knew her wedding day would be long. She just hoped the date -- 7/07/07 -- would be lucky as well.
After an early start to buy fresh bouquets at the St. Paul Farmers Market, her house phone began ringing shortly after 8 a.m. as family and friends called with questions and good wishes.

"Good morning," Strong, 21, said with a grin. "Wedding Central."

It was absolutely Wedding Central across the Twin Cities on Saturday, a date some consider the luckiest of the century -- especially if they're in the wedding business.

Wedding venues, from churches to country clubs, have been booked for months, some with twice the number of weddings as usual.

Chris Rehwaldt, sounding harried after picking up the phone at Buttercream Bakery in St. Paul, said the morning was "kinda crazy." A caterer at Bearpath Country Club didn't have a second to talk. "We're running around doing 100 things."

In a typical year, marrying Minnesotans tend to avoid July weddings. Too hot. Too buggy. The popular months are September and October. This year, though, 7/07/07 was hard to resist.

The number seven has long been associated with good fortune. In Judaic and Christian traditions, God rested on and sanctified the seventh day after creating the universe. Buddha is said to have walked seven steps after birth. In Islamic tradition, 7, 70 and 70,000 have been used as expressions of the infinite.

And Saturday wasn't just the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the new millennium. It also fell just after July 4, creating the option of an extended celebration.

Married at the mall

At the Mall of America's rotunda Saturday, where white folding chairs were arranged in rows of seven, Matt Bermel, 26, and Kristi Stuhr, 23, were feeling lucky in love and a little shell-shocked.

A while back, they threw their names into a lottery for people who wanted the 7/07/07 date. "What if we win?" Stuhr asked.

"We'll talk about it then," Bermel told her.

She found out just three weeks ago that they had been picked. "I called him at work. I said, 'We won.' " Not to worry. She found a lovely wedding dress on craigslist. Fifty bucks.

Luckier the second time

Upstairs, far from the crowds, Jennifer Muller-Yauch and Jason Yauch, both 35, said their teary vows in the Chapel of Love in front of a much smaller audience: Two people.

Muller-Yauch was married once before and has a 15-year-old son, Jacob. Does this marriage feel luckier? She laughed. "Actually, it does."

Strong (who woke up this morning as Katie Zuraff) was up at 5:30 a.m., along with her parents, Vicki and Bruce Strong of Woodbury. "I have to smile when I say that so I don't cry," said Strong, not normally a morning person.

By 7:55 a.m., she was back at her folks' house for a quick breakfast of bagels and coffee, before her hair and make-up appointments started. Her cell phone rang. Her future husband, Chris Zuraff, 22, was asking for directions to a restaurant. "You mean, you're not calling to say you love me, that you want to shower me with kisses, that I'm the most beautiful woman you've ever met?" she asked.

"That, too," he said.

At 3:30 p.m., Strong and Zuraff, graduates of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., stood in front of more than 200 guests at Woodbury Lutheran Church. The bride looked glorious, the groom handsome and composed, the flowers perfect. Pastor Dean Nadasdy noted the date, but said the young couple "have bigger things on their mind, like God and faith."

Still, he couldn't resist as he looked at Chris, who begins four years of study at Luther Seminary this fall: "You have no excuse to forget your wedding date."


Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350 • grosenblum@startribune.com