Vow Renewal of Angie and Ronnie Toncrey at Time Fest II 2014
Ten years ago I got married. We had known each other for 18 years, even dated in junior high, but he never proposed. Somehow I found myself on Ocean Springs Beach wearing a sarong & exchanging vows with the very first boy I ever dated. Next thing I know he’s slipping a cheap Jazz Fest ring on my finger and we’re married. Fast forward nine years later, Ronnie is promoted and will begin traveling for work. It was his dream job, and I encouraged him to go. On the 4th of July, watching fireworks with my family I got it- an actual engagement ring. We had discussed a vow renewal and even asked Paul to officiate and if we could use the TARDIS. Paul suggested Time Fest as a place to renew our vows. Let’s see, renew our vows in front of a room full of fellow SciFi Geeks? Yes, please!
Time Fest got closer and closer and we made more arrangements. I bought an actual wedding dress and decided to be the Runaway Bride. Ronnie bought a suit that was similar to David Tenant. Paige & I compromised on her flower girl dress and shoes. We booked our hotel room and drove over from Mobile to New Orleans. We were ready. I would wear a wedding dress and Ronnie would be surprised when he saw it. There would be one slight last minute change, instead of Paul doing the ceremony, it would be Tim. He asked if we minded the change since Paul was a bit preoccupied with everything else. When Tim asked he didn’t know that we had talked about asking him to do it in the first place. Things just worked out.
It was a hectic weekend with Ronnie helping with setup the night before. The morning of Time Fest I reported to the kids table to help out while Ronnie reported to the game room to run the RPG’s. At the appointed time Ronnie closed down the games and went to get his suit. Kristin and Paige went up to the room with me to help me get dressed. I came down in the elevator ducking behind a cardboard TARDIS to hide from Ronnie. People were stopping me to take pictures, which kind of surprised me. I was hoping people would come watch, but I never expected to be stopped like that.
With the room setup we had decided earlier in the day I would walk in from the pool area. Standing out there I had no idea if the music was playing and if it was time, or if Ronnie was even there! So I opened the door and in I went. Theme music was playing, people were stopping to watch and pointing. Ronnie’s jaw dropped when he saw me. I walked up to him and we started.
It was everything I hoped it would be. Ronnie wrote the ceremony and suggested we write our own vows. After he told me he was going to quote The Beatles, I tried to find the perfect song lyrics. Then it literally hit me, here was my chance to Rick Roll my own wedding! How many people get to do that? As I’m listening to Tim read his part, and Ronnie say his vows I’m listening to the crowd. They were perfect. They laughed in the right spots, said awww in the right spots, and some were crying. Ronnie changed a word on the spot and lost his place. Paige supplied the missing lyrics for him; Tim gave her a fist bump. A fist bump, in the middle, awesome. Then I did it. I Rick Rolled Ronnie. They got it! The crowd laughed.
All too quickly it was over. Tim was proclaiming us companions for life and everyone was applauding. After it was over people were coming up to us to congratulate us and tell us how wonderful it was. Thank you.
Thank all of you for allowing us to renew our vows and making us feel all warm and fuzzy loved. Thank you to Paul for giving us the space and time. Thank you to Kristin for helping me get dressed, I literally could not have gone down the aisle without you. Thank you to Tim for stepping in and staying in costume even longer to perform our ceremony. Thank you to Matt for taking pictures. And finally, thank you to the girl with the purple hair for the use of your scarf and Sonic Screwdriver. You said you’ve been playing on Pintrest planning a potential future wedding; I hope that your future husband loves Dr Who as much as you do and that you get the funky wedding of your dreams.
The following Saturday we did it all again when we gathered in Ocean Springs with family and close friends. This time Paul performed our ceremony, using the same words as those from Time Fest. I guess you could say the Time Fest was our dress rehearsal. Or maybe Time Fest was the actual, and the one in Ocean Springs was the practice? Time travel has a way of changing things up. This was the vow renewal we had planned from the beginning. My maid of honor dressed as River Song, the best man was K-9. No, he wasn’t surprised by my dress this time. And the crowd certainly didn’t get the Rick Roll, although most of them got the Dr. Who theme. They even played along with our invites and dressed in character. (My favorite picture of the day was actually Superman busting out of the TARDIS.) While all of them honored our request for no gifts, a few felt the need to do something so they donated to The Wounded Warrior Project as we had suggested. The TARDIS cake with surrounding scarf was perfect, and the scarf was edible. We toasted in our TARDIS revealing glasses and explained Dr. Who to the more muggle of our family members. Finally, after 10 years of marriage I even got my first dance.
Forget Romeo and Juliet, find a love like Amy and Rory. A man who’ll wait almost 2,000 years for you is worth the wait, no matter how annoying he may be to the rest of us.
Angie Toncrey