from the band with the song, it’s the wedding
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Then the couple learned that early this summer Train had begun collecting video applications for onstage wedding ceremonies, an idea inspired by a nightly fan ritual begun years earlier in which one or two marriage proposals would occur at the band’s concerts, and always during a performance of “Marry Me.” From the stage, Pat Monahan, the lead singer, could see cameras flashing and proposal pits forming. “There’s a guy on his knee in the middle of all these people while we’re up there playing this song,” he said.TRANSCRIPT
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From the Band With the Song, It’s the Wedding
Brendan Bannon for The New York Times
Scott Underwood, left, onstage with Natalie Sobolevsky and Brandon Pepin. More Photos »
By JI HYUN LEEPublished: August 31, 2012
NATALIE SOBOLEVSKY and Brandon Pepin found a way to have amemorable, virtually expense-free wedding with 7,000 in attendance.After Train, the pop-rock group, struck the closing chords of theirsignature hit “Marry Me” at a concert on Aug. 25, Scott Underwood,the band’s drummer, who has also become a Universal Life minister,bounded backstage at the Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center inCanandaigua, N.Y., to fetch the couple.
After leading Ms. Sobolevsky, 22, andMr. Pepin, 24, in a brief ceremony —the seventh such onstage marriage ata Train concert this summer — Mr.Underwood declared, “You may kissthe bride.” The house roared in celebration. When it wasover, Ms. Sobolevsky, who sealed the deal in grand style,minus all the manic planning and fanfare commonlyassociated with unions of the matrimonial sort, said, “Itwas a little hectic at first but when we were up there, it wasamazing.”
“I just wanted a nontraditional wedding ever since I was 13and my parents had gotten divorced,” she said. “I just always had this thought like, ‘Who’sgoing to walk me down the aisle?’ ” With her father no longer in the picture and a smallfamily to boot, Ms. Sobolevsky, a recent college graduate now preparing to apply to lawschool, had thought a wedding celebration was something that might be limited to a brief
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civil ceremony, perhaps at the town hall in Skaneateles, N.Y., where she and Mr. Pepin, asecurity guard, live.
Then the couple learned that early this summer Train had begun collecting videoapplications for onstage wedding ceremonies, an idea inspired by a nightly fan ritualbegun years earlier in which one or two marriage proposals would occur at the band’sconcerts, and always during a performance of “Marry Me.” From the stage, Pat Monahan,the lead singer, could see cameras flashing and proposal pits forming. “There’s a guy onhis knee in the middle of all these people while we’re up there playing this song,” he said.
Measured across the more than 400 concert dates the band played in the last three years,that’s a lot of commitment going on.
Once the band had decided to directly participate in this ritual, the members had to agreeon how to narrow the field to one couple per show. To that end, the band collectivelyreviewed applicants by setting a “how-deep-is-your-love” barometer on the videosubmissions that were filtering in through its Web site and Facebook pages.
Those who had been selected were given an hourlong interview with Mr. Underwood.Before getting behind his drum kit, he would write a personalized script.
The first wedding took place July 26, when the band’s California 37 tour rolled intoCharlotte, N.C. “It’s kind of a moving thing to become a part of their life,” said Mr.Underwood, who is divorced but also engaged and ready to marry again. “And then I writeout their story and then I tell it to the audience.”
Nevertheless, he said: “It is a bizarre idea. We weren’t sure if it was going to be accepted ornot.”
Couples going big on the big day could indicate a bigger commitment, said Corinne E.Reczek, an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Cincinnati.“The example of marrying onstage in front of a stadium-packed audience of strangers,rather than in a church full of one’s closest friends and loved ones, may be furtherevidence of the shift toward marriage as an individualized act between two people,” shesaid. “While marriage was once about connecting two families of in-laws together via afinancial arrangement, marriage now signifies love and companionship.”
In the case of Ms. Sobolevsky, who managed to get some free concert tickets from the bandso that her mother and aunt could attend, it really wasn’t about saving money, she said.Instead she had found a way to combine her love of the band — she’s been a fan since shewas 8 — with her desire to keep the proceedings streamlined.
No floral arrangement was required nor any explanation for why she wouldn’t have afather-daughter dance at the show. “It all fell together,” she said.
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From the Band With the Song, It’s the Wedding - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/fashion/weddings/from-th...
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