When Sally and Sam Olson decided on a winter wedding with a snowflake theme, they didn’t know they’d be using the St. Paul Winter Carnival as their backdrop.
But that’s just what the couple had for their big day Saturday: King Boreas, the Queen of the Snows, a parade, ice sculptures and bundled-up crowds, accompanied by the standard frigid temperatures and wind chills.
“I had researched whether there was going to be a hockey game at Xcel — there wasn’t — but a while later, I got to thinking, ‘Wait, it’s January, it’s downtown St. Paul. I wonder if Carnival is going on,’ ” Sally said.
Turns out, the winter festival’s King Boreas Grande Day Parade coincided with the couple’s wedding at Assumption Catholic Church in downtown St. Paul. Their ceremony started at 3 p.m. while the parade ran between 2 and 4 p.m.
The church is blocks from the parade route, but the bride worried the carnival crowds and traffic would spread throughout downtown.
“But then I thought, ‘Actually, this could be sort of fun. The Winter Carnival is so pretty, we might as well take advantage of it,’ ” Sally said.
The carnival folks were happy to be a part of their day after the bride’s mother, Kathy Kidd, and the church wedding coordinator, Kay Baker, contacted them.
The wedding went smoothly — no parking problems or other carnival-related issues. Immediately after the wedding and parade, the bride and groom met Sarah Schweich, the Queen of the Snows, and Christopher Schneeman, King Boreas, to pose for photos among the ice sculptures at Rice Park.
“They knighted us, too,” Sally said.
At 2 degrees, it was darn chilly for outdoor photos, but it was worth it, she said.
“My toes are a little cold, but I have so much energy that the rest of me is warm,” the bride said. “Besides, this will be such a great story to share with our kids someday.”
Afterward, the newlyweds celebrated their nuptials with dinner and dancing at the White Bear Country Inn, which is owned by Bill Foussard, the 2008 King Boreas.
The Woodbury couple, both 31, met as neighbors while attending St. Cloud State University. They didn’t start dating until they met again years later in the Twin Cities. Sally works as an assistant for the Legislative Coordinating Commission of the Minnesota Legislature, and Sam works as an analyst at the Brehm Group in Minneapolis.
Theirs is a St. Paul romance, with dates early on at O’Gara’s and Mancini’s.
The bride said even if marching bands, Vulcans and tiara-topped princesses had been walking down the aisle with her, she still would have said “I do” at Assumption.
“Nothing would have stopped me,” Sally said. “My mom spent a month at St. Joseph’s Hospital in the summer of 2006 with pancreatic cancer, and we would sit and look out her window at all the weddings coming in and out of the church.”
So, in a way, Saturday was about celebrating her mother’s recovery as well as the wedding.
Sally knew she wanted a winter ceremony.
“This is cheesy, but I wanted a muff,” she said. The bride had her muff and a faux fur coat to accessorize her dress. The groom, who’d never been to the Winter Carnival, liked the idea of a January ceremony, too, but for different reasons: the discounts, he said.
The wintry theme of their wedding will continue as the couple head up north to honeymoon at Sam’s family cabin — where they plan to go ice fishing.
If you’ve said “I do” in the past 12 months and would like the Pioneer Press to consider profiling your wedding, call Molly Millett at 651-228-5505.
Copyright 2009 Pioneer Press.