KNIGHTSTOWN — Pandemic or not, James and Corrie Alfrey were adamant about getting married on April Fool’s Day.
When state-mandated restrictions forced them to officially cancel the big event they had planned for 200 guests at an Indianapolis reception hall, the couple forged ahead and got married on April 1 anyway — playfully sporting surgical masks and gloves as they walked alongside a creek at Sunset Park in Knightstown.
Even though April Fool’s Day fell on a Wednesday, the couple wanted to get married that day to commemorate the time of year when they met over a decade ago.
“It’s just a special date to us, and we wanted to honor that,” said James Alfrey, 51, an installer for Greenfield Signs & Lighting, who lives in Indianapolis.
The couple spent nearly 2½ years planning their wedding, only to have vendors call one by one, canceling their services just two weeks before the big event.
Then, there was the guest list: Corrie has a brother in Japan and other relatives in Seattle, and they began letting the couple know they were hesitant to travel as pandemic fears grew.
Their disappointment ran deeper when they were unable to find a minister willing to marry them on April 1, until James learned that a friend and co-worker — Brian Millican of Knightstown — was ordained to perform weddings, having done so for a relative five years ago.
“I was happy to do it for them,” said Millican, who said plans came together rather quickly for the day.
“We were looking up places to hold the ceremony on the way to Knightstown when I found Sunset Park on my phone,” recalled James, who settled on Knightstown so Millican wouldn’t have to drive far from home.
It was Corrie’s idea to sport masks and gloves for some of their wedding photos in the park. “It just shows the sign of the times,” said James, who appreciates his wife’s sense of humor.
The happy couple sported bride and groom shirts that Corrie bought online, since they’re saving their wedding apparel for their formal reception, where they will again recite their vows.
In the end, the couple loved the way their official wedding day turned out.
“We just made the best of it and it turned out really well,” said Corrie, 36.
“Even though everything we had planned was taken away from us, it was still a wonderful day, and a lot of funny stuff happened,” James said, one of which was having a dog take a potty break in the background during the ceremony.
The couple streamed the wedding on Facebook Live, so friends and family around the world shared a laugh at the distracting image in real time.
The Alfreys have no idea how many people actually tuned in to watch the wedding live. “But I know a lot of people I went to high school with were congratulating me and thanking me for letting them be a part of the wedding. It was kind of crazy,” James said.
The actual wedding was attended by only Corrie’s teenage daughter and Millican’s wife and stepdaughter.
Other guests will have to wait to toast the new couple in person later this year. The Alfreys still plan to host their dream wedding at the Biltwell Event Center, when the pandemic clears and life hopefully returns to normal.
“I was really upset about our plans getting upended, but Corrie convinced me that by continuing to get married on April 1, we’ve got a really cool story that we can tell our family through the years,” James said.
“The turn of events has made for a unique story for us to look back on. It’s not your normal run-of-the-mill wedding story,” Corrie said.
“It’s not what we were hoping for, but it’s still something we can look back on and appreciate. I know that there’s a lot of people going through a lot of difficult times right now, and just the fact that we were able to still make it happen made it that much more special,” she said.
