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Have a ball and remember when

A mother-daughter team offers married couples a second time to celebrate "The Day."

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 7, 2007

Kelley Pearn helps to zip-up her mother Sheila Kilpatrick's wedding dress prior to a portrait session to promote their new business. Kilpatrick and Pearn are starting a business that puts on "anniversary balls," events at which married couples can get dressed up in their wedding attire and dance, have a meal and renew their vows.
	[Stephen J. Coddington | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Stephen J. Coddington | Times] For $395, each couple gets a gourmet dinner at a table for two, an individual wedding cake, champagne toast, music and dancing, and a chance to renew their vows. Women are encouraged to wear their wedding gowns, though time may have dictated that they seek other options.The first event is scheduled for Sept. 8 at the Kapok Tree Ballroom in Clearwater.

CLEARWATER -- No event inspires as much effort at memorymaking as a wedding. So it has been with generations of brides, and so it was with Kassie Brown.

For her Feb. 24 wedding, she recruited eight bridesmaids, three junior bridesmaids and two flower girls. She commissioned a four-layer cake and featured sepia-toned photographs of herself and her groom, Josh, as table centerpieces.

But after the big day came and went, Brown thought: That was beautiful -- but did I ever eat cake? And aside from swaying to Let's Get It On and getting down to a hip-hop song, how many times did I dance?

"It's like you're in the midst of a huge dream," said Brown, a 25-year-old New York-based dancer who got married in Clearwater. "You're pulled in all these directions."

Her experience marked the beginning of a new family business.

Brown's mother, Sheila Kilpatrick, 55, and her sister, Kelly Pearn, 34, have started Remember When, organizing anniversary balls for married couples of all ages. The first is set for Saturday at the Kapok Special Events ballroom in Clearwater.

Couples can dress up and celebrate their marriage again -- this time without all the advance organizing, the guests, the schedules, and the pressures to entertain and socialize on The Most Important Day of Your Life.

For $395, each couple gets a gourmet dinner at a table for two, an individual wedding cake, champagne toast, music and dancing, and a chance to renew their vows. Women are encouraged to wear their wedding gowns, though time may have dictated that they seek other options.

Kilpatrick and Pearn, both New Port Richey residents, say they hope to tap into a market of people who treasure their wedding days but would love to relive them with more intimacy or time-earned wisdom than they had as overwhelmed brides and grooms.

These aren't just couples who have had over-the-top weddings.

Jeanne Trainello, a Hudson hospital telephone operator, said her wedding this past January was small on purpose. It was her second, and she and fiance Jim decided to invite 40 friends out for dinner at the Sam Seltzer's Steakhouse in Port Richey and exchange vows at the restaurant.

As small and unpretentious as it was, Trainello said, the night ended up being as much about celebrating with friends as it was about the two of them.

"Any wedding, I think, is more for the people who attend than the ones getting married," said Trainello, 37. She plans to attend the anniversary ball because, she said, "You can focus on one another."

Clearwater resident Bill Brookfield, who also has signed up for the Saturday ball, chuckles when he recalls his wedding to wife Kathy. He forgot his wallet, so his brother had to pay the $55 ceremony fee. She forgot her veil, so she waited, in tears, as one, then two, rescue teams of wedding guests were dispatched to find the veil at her home.

Now, 25 years later, he said he and his wife take a lighter view of events than they did when they were nervous 20-somethings with a long list of relatives in town.

"We always have fun together," said Brookfield, a 53-year-old software design engineer. A bonus: The pair were married at the Kapok.

Kilpatrick has pulled out her own wedding gown for the ball in the hopes of correcting something this time around.

When she was married, the photographer she'd hired couldn't attend. So he sent a photographer-in-training.

This was fine until shortly after the wedding, when she got an apologetic call from the studio. There would be no photographs -- the young photographer had forgotten to put film in his camera.

This time when Kilpatrick puts on her wedding dress, a professional photographer will be waiting.

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247.

FAST FACTS: Join the fun
Remember When can be reached at (727) 409-7100 or (727) 459-2635 or on the Web: www.rememberwhenanniversaryball.com.

[Last modified September 6, 2007, 22:49:15]