 
|
|||||||||||||
              
|
Bride and groom stay on track with 30-day trip around country
Tuesday, July 17, 2001 By Brian Prince, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Bill and Natalie Blais of Homewood knew they wanted something different for their wedding day -- something adventurous. So, instead of gathering family and friends in one spot for their wedding ceremony, the couple decided to trade a church for a rail pass and take their wedding on the road.
Over the course of 30 days, the two will make eight stops between here and Portland, Ore., and Burlington, Vt., to celebrate their union. At each stop, they will repeat their vows and have family and friends sign a special scrapbook, an idea borrowed from the Quaker tradition of having wedding guests sign marriage certificates.
They're calling it a reverse elopement.
The official marriage ceremony was held Saturday afternoon at Frick Park, which a handful of people attended. Then, at midnight the couple hopped on an Amtrak train and embarked on their cross-country journey.
Their unconventional idea was born a month ago during one of their conventional activities -- dining on Indian food. "We just tried to figure out a way to manage having friends and relatives all over the country, and this is what we came up with," said Bill Belais, 33, a Duquesne University psychology major from Burlington. "We think of the whole 30 days as a wedding, slash, honeymoon."
That may be when the decision was made, but the couple's inspiration actually came a week earlier after reading Jeff Greenwald's 1995 book, "Size of the World." Greenwald celebrated his 40th birthday by traveling around the world -- without taking a plane. He crossed the globe by train, ship, truck and bus.
"When you're on the train, you get the sense that you are going somewhere, that you're doing something," said Denver native Natalie Blais, a social worker. "We're looking at this as a big adventure -- hopefully, the first of many." The couple is hoping to get in contact with Greenwald and meet him in Oakland, Calif.
Their odyssey will take them from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe; Denver; Sacramento; Portland; Ashland, Wis.; Burlington; Providence, R.I.; and Philadelphia, with layovers and stops in between to switch trains. When they reach Denver, a second wedding ceremony will be led, in part, by Natalie Blais' grandfather, Ewhen Wasylyna, a deacon in the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
But those who cannot reach Colorado in time need not despair. The couple are carrying a digital camera with them to record their journey and update their "Month Long Wedding" Web site, http://www.pobox.com/~bill.blais, with pictures and stories.
The first stop is Santa Fe, where the couple met in 1990 during the city's annual Zozobra Festival at St. John's College. "The city still holds a special place with us," she said.
The Blaises expect the whole trip to cost them about $2,000, which includes their $600 North American rail passes as well as food and lodging.
"There will only be a couple of places where we won't be staying with friends and family," she said. "Hopefully, there'll be lots of fun and lots of eating of delicious food."
Not to mention lots of excitement, which is what this couple sees on the horizon. "We look at it as symbolic of the way we want to live our life," she said.
|
||||||||||||
