WEDDING ON SKATES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 24 August 1907, Page 3

WEDDING ON SKATES.

J Automobile weddings in America, with '■ the pastor tieiug thb knot while the machines are dashing along the country I roads at full speed, have already been I described in American papers, and now comes the report of a wedding on rollerskates. This pleasing innovation was successfully inaugurated in Paradise Park, Brooklyn, one night last month, and in view of the craze for roller-skates which now exists on this side of the Atlantic, riuks with thousands of fashionable patrons, being established everywhere, it may become popular. Mr Raymond Barrett and Mi" Susan Pierce h've the distinction of being the lirst couple married on roller-skates and the llev. George Dalton, of Brooklyn, the minister who officiated, was also on skate*. Mr Barrett, a wealthy young engineer,' first met Miss Pierce at Paradise Park, whither she used to come to skate, lit- was enthusiastic about rol-ler-skating; so was she, and in the course of time they became enthusiastic about- each other. Both had the skating mania in such an acute form that when Mr Barrett asked Miss Pierce if she would be "his for good, she said she gladly would if he would keep his skates on. He said that he would not take them off for anything, and so they were married with their skates on. About 500 frenzied roller-skaters glided into Paradise Park to see the ceremony. While they were all waiting for the Rev. Jlr Dalton on his skates to arrive the band played Mendelssohn's "Wedding March," and Vesta Victoria's "Waiting at the Church." At last the minister arrived, amid deafening applause, and, after a few fancy flourishes, Mr Dalton led the bridal party to the altar at a good clip on his skates. As he swayed and swept and pigeon-winged along the ffoor all the boys said he cut a handsome figure, and the girls said he was "just too sweet for words," an American phrase, frequently employed by American ladies. After Turn came Mr Barrett and Miss Pierce, on their skates, and the best man, Mr Wililam Posner, and the maid-of-honor, Miss Hattie Monroe, on theirs. Without as much as once falling over himself, Mr Dalton personally conducted the whole rinkful of rollerskaters to the canopy at the end of the room, where, without removing their skates, he pronounced the solemn words that made Mr Barrett and Miss Pierce man and wife. Then there was a big spread, at which nobody took their skates off, and after it the happy couple skated out to a carriage and began their wedding journey to Atlantic City.