Football and eternal love: The two may not seemingly go together, but for couples who — either unwittingly or purposefully — plan to say their “I do’s” on Super Bowl Sunday, the overlap is obviously unavoidable. For some super fanatics, the Super Bowl apparently feels like a fitting day to profess their lifelong commitment to each other (and perhaps their team). For others, getting married on Super Bowl Sunday is merely an unfortunate oversight.
I know what you’re thinking: Why would anyone choose to tie the knot on the same day as the Super Bowl? As it turns out, there are some perks to doing so. For one, planning your wedding on an unpopular date may mean that many venues and vendors are available. And, of course, if you and your significant other happen to be football fanatics, it could be memorable to exchange your vows right before kickoff. That said, there are many pitfalls to choosing Super Bowl Sunday as your wedding date (in fact, WeddingWire named it as one of their top wedding dates to avoid). Since it’s already such a busy weekend for travel, you may be asking guests to spend a lot more on flights, hotels, etc (especially if your wedding is happening anywhere near the game or the hometown of either team playing). Not to mention, you may not have your guests’ undivided attention on Super Bowl Sunday. And the last thing you want is to see them checking their phones for the score or ducking out to catch some of the game on TV when they should be celebrating with you.
None of that has stopped certain people from saying “I do” on the first Sunday in February. Alas, these couples bravely decided to tie the knot on game day — and have zero regrets.
Shawna Cook and Brian Mascarelli loved the symmetry of the date 2/2 — so much so that they chose it for their wedding date. According to USA Today, what the Washington-based couple didn’t realize until a month later was that it also happened to be Super Bowl Sunday.
When Cook’s friends and family brought this detail to her attention, she immediately began trying to fix the situation — especially when she realized that the service would begin right in the middle of the first quarter.
Then, as fate would have it, Cook’s favorite team (the Seattle Seahawks), ended up making it into the championship game. So the couple decided to embrace the fact that they would share their momentous day with the Seahawks. Fortunately, the service was scheduled to end at halftime, and the bride planned a Seahawks-themed celebration with big-screen TVs for guests to watch.
Not all Super Bowl weddings are accidental, however. In fact, one couple from Pennsylvania had so much love for the Eagles, they decided to have a wedding on the game day, according to CBS Philly. Not only that, but they opted for a Super Bowl theme at the reception. Sabrina Seneca told CBS that she and her fiance agreed to get married on Super Bowl Sunday if their beloved team made it into the game, and when they did, they planned their wedding in just nine days.
They took the theme pretty seriously, too. When the bride walked down the aisle, she walked on an Astroturf runner that her father made. Not only that, but the runner had yard lines marked on it, and the couple got married in the Eagles’ end zone. CBS reports that at the after party, there would be about 10 TVs set up playing the game.
“We’ll go through the normal, traditional stuff like father/daughter dance and when kickoff starts it’s strictly just watching the Super Bowl,” Seneca told CBS.
When Stacey Tavor Merwin and her husband picked their date to say “I do,” they opted for Feb. 5 only because they knew they wanted a winter wedding, and also because it didn’t appear to be a busy weekend for travel. Then, Merwin’s husband realized it was Super Bowl Sunday, and given that he was a freelance photographer for Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine, that was obviously a potential problem. Still, as Merwin explains in a HuffPost blog, the couple decided to stick with their original plan, and her husband simply watched the game with family the following day.
What they weren’t considering, of course, is that their anniversary may fall on the Super Bowl in certain years (either on that exact Sunday or within that weekend).
“Josh is a huge Houston Texans fan, so when they made the playoffs for the first time, I decided to be the Cool Newlywed Wife and make a deal with him: If his team made it to the Super Bowl, we could celebrate the day before,” she writes in her HuffPost piece.
Merwin even admits that she secretly rooted for the other team (which ultimately won).
Clearly, a Super Bowl wedding can be a touchdown or a total foul, depending on the nature of your relationship and your feelings about the game. The lesson, however, is this: You may want to avoid planning your big day on the first Sunday in February — unless you plan to totally embrace the overlap with a football-themed shindig. Otherwise, you could risk hearing someone shout "OFFSIDE!" while you're exchanging your vows.
