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Where couples have said 'I do' for decades

As couples renewed their wedding vows, Dunedin's Andrews Memorial Chapel celebrated the 35th anniversary of its relocation.

By TIFFANI SHERMAN
Published November 21, 2005

	[Times photos: Douglas R. Clifford]
	Martha and Herb Donald, left, and Alice and Tom Anderson renew their wedding vows Sunday as part of a celebration honoring the 35th anniversary of Andrews Memorial Chapel's relocation from downtown Dunedin to Hammock Park. The chapel has hosted about 130 weddings in the past year.
	Clara Ann Yarian, 69, left, and her mother, Laura Jane McDuffee, 91, work on crafts Sunday at the chapel. The Dunedin Historical Society's two-day celebration included a display of vintage bridal finery and a tea for prospective brides. The chapel, built by settlers, opened in downtown Dunedin in 1888.

DUNEDIN - Thousands of brides have walked down the aisle of Dunedin's Andrews Memorial Chapel since it opened in 1888.

On Sunday, four couples helped celebrate that history by renewing their wedding vows there as part of the 35th anniversary of the chapel's relocation to Hammock Park. The two-day celebration included a display of vintage bridal finery and a tea for prospective brides.

"It's one of the few remaining buildings in Dunedin that still has the ties to its pioneering roots," said Vincent Luisi, 51, the director of the Dunedin Historical Museum. "It stands for the history of the community."

Settlers built the church at the corner of Scotland and Highland streets in downtown Dunedin, where it functioned as part of First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin until the church decided to tear it down in 1970.

That's when the newly formed Dunedin Historical Society vowed to save the chapel.

"I helped restore this chapel," said Herb Donald, 90, a former Dunedin commissioner. Sunday, he and Martha Donald, 86, his wife of 60 years, renewed their vows at the chapel.

The couple married on July 21, 1945, in Ridgewood, N.J., with Herb in his Navy uniform. Sunday, he wore a blue sport coat and a Dunedin tie.

"I've been thinking about doing this for a very long time," he said. "Since they were doing it today, I decided to do it."

Martha Donald said the chapel was part of the couple's past. They remember when crews cut the chapel into two pieces to move it 2 miles on flatbed trucks from downtown to Hammock Park.

"You can see the cut across where they sawed it," she said. Workers put the pieces back together, and in July 1972, the Interior Department placed the chapel on the National Register of Historic Places.

"It is an absolutely wonderful place," said Ronald Beach, 58, of Palm Harbor. He is a professional photographer who has captured wedding memories in the chapel for more than 50 couples.

"It talks to me out of ages past," he said. "The building represents itself. You don't have to decorate it to make it look good."

The chapel's 21 hand-carved pews can seat 130 guests. The ceiling, made of native heart pine, looks like a dark wood ship. A Tiffany-style stained-glass window above the altar is original.

"Everyone can come and get married there," said Linda Sanders, 59, the chapel coordinator. She helped organize about 130 weddings there in the past year. In nine years with the chapel, she has had a hand in more than 850 weddings.

A fully booked weekend can mean one wedding on Friday, three on Saturday and two on Sunday. Those who book now can expect to pay $428 to reserve the chapel; in 2006, booking an event will be $481.50.

That fee is what keeps the chapel running.

"Weddings supply the revenue to help support this building," Luisi said. They also help fund the operations of the Dunedin Historical Society.

"So many places are being destroyed and not being preserved," said Susan Littlejohn, the society's president. She and her husband of 15 years, Charlie, 59, renewed their vows Sunday at the chapel.

"It's something for Dunedin to be proud of," she said.

It also helps people feel connected to the past.

"My grandmother was married here," said Terry Fortner, 52, of Ozona, who renewed the wedding vows she first recited in 1981 with her husband, Bob. She said she saw the date of the renewal ceremony and circled it on her calendar.

"It was a day to remember her," she said.

[Last modified November 21, 2005, 01:06:05]