STORY:
When 2 Become 1 on 1/1

Around the world, Jan. 1, 2000 weddings are in the works

by Clark Humphrey

What better way to kick off a new era for the world by kicking off a new era for yourself?

Around the world, Jan. 1, 2000 weddings are in the works.

Lots of couples seem to feel this way.

Already, posh wedding chapels from Las Vegas to Minnesota’s Mall of America are booked solid for the big 1/1/00 date. There's even a mass millennium wedding in Bangkok Thailand. But some lucky brides and grooms are finding their own special places for their special day, either on the First Day or later in the big Double-Aught year.

The Canadian bridal magazine Wedding Bells just held an online reader survey; 15% of the couples who responded had deliberately planned their weddings for New Year's Eve or later in 2000. The Edmonton Sun quoted jeweler Donna Galesloot expecting "a 20 percent hike in sales this year because of millennium wedding fever."

"People want to have a big wedding in the same way people want to have a big new year party - because of the millennium," said Galesloot.

The Irish Mirror newspaper recently ran a contest to find the "Millennium Bride of the Year." Readers were asked to write in about how they’d met their true loves. The newspaper's editors chose the 12 most heartwarming stories, and invited their authors to a public awards ceremony. There, the editors announced the contest’s grand prizewinner, as picked by former Miss Ireland Vivienne Doyle. The winner was Gillian McCann, 29, from the town of Ballsgrove. She won for her story of how she and her partner of eight years, Niall Boyle, have stuck together through good times and bad while he’s studied for a music degree and they’ve raised a son. McCann won a fancy-dress wedding and a two-week honeymoon in Cancun.

Back Stateside, the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania will hold a downtown outdoor ceremony and street party in the wee hours of Jan. 1 for all couples who sign up in advance to start married life at the start of the millennium. One lucky pair will be designated Allentown’s official "Millennium Couple" in a drawing before the event. That couple will be married right after midnight, in a ceremony led by the town’s mayor and a local minister. All other couples will be married in a group ceremony moments later.

Clark Humphrey is a contributing writer to Everything2000. His pop-culture report is now daily at WWW.MISCMEDIA.COM

DATE: 9/15/99

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