17-02-2006, 10:44 AM
Culture Vulture: Camouflaged couples walk down the aisle
By Brandon Griggs
The Salt Lake Tribune
Oh, those wacky radio personalities! To celebrate Valentine's Day, K-Bull (93 FM) morning-show hosts Johnson & Johnson have persuaded 12 Utah couples to get hitched during a mass "shotgun" wedding today at 1 p.m. at Cabela's, the outdoors superstore in Lehi. Each couple will get free wedding rings, a floral bouquet, a night in a hotel and their very own 12-gauge shotgun.
A justice of the peace, dressed in an orange hunting outfit, will marry the couples simultaneously in front of the store's wildlife display. (Last-minute wedding gifts at the Bargain Cave, anyone?) Afterward the couples will don camo and hunting gear and pose for a group photo with their shotguns.
"Whether they clear the screening process [for the gun] is a whole other story," chuckles Johnson & Johnson morning-show producer Scott Bigger. "That's not our problem."
The event can't compare in size to K-Bull's past mass weddings, which featured up to 93 couples, but that's only because the Salt Lake City country-music station limited the number of wedding wannabes. K-Bull received more than 350 e-mails from Utah couples wanting to participate.
"We thought people would be turned off by how 'redneck' this type of ceremony might seem. But as it turns out, that's why people love it so much," says co-host Joe Johnson. "Our biggest concern is keeping some of our grooms with their bride during the vows instead of trying to shop!"
To pick the dozen lucky couples, K-Bull chose only those with the most interesting courtship stories. Here are some of the best:
* After dating his girlfriend for more than a decade, one West Jordan man promised her they'd finally tie the knot if the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl.
* A Kearns woman is marrying a neighbor she caught watching her through binoculars
while she was sunbathing.
* A Davis County man captured his fiancee's heart by spending more than $300 to win her a stuffed animal at Lagoon.
* One couple met after she flagged him down on Interstate 15.
So given the "shotgun wedding" theme, are these couples just doing this as a stunt? Or maybe for the free gun? Oh, no, says K-Bull's Bigger. "These are all people who really wanted to get married."
Guess you can't watch "Winnie the Pooh," either: Some DVD players these days come equipped with TVGuardian, a new technology that automatically filters offensive language from movies and TV programs. The filter scans the movie's script for naughty words, then mutes the entire phrase in which the word or words appear. According to its slogan, TVGuardian "makes movie time family time again."
Well, thanks to some overzealous filtering by its programmers, TVGuardian also makes movie time "confusing time." One of my Trib colleagues discovered this accidentally when he left the TVGuardian filter on while watching "Toy Story" with his kids. The filter scrubbed from the movie every reference to "Woody."
Brandon Griggs
Mvh
Kim
Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.
By Brandon Griggs
The Salt Lake Tribune
Oh, those wacky radio personalities! To celebrate Valentine's Day, K-Bull (93 FM) morning-show hosts Johnson & Johnson have persuaded 12 Utah couples to get hitched during a mass "shotgun" wedding today at 1 p.m. at Cabela's, the outdoors superstore in Lehi. Each couple will get free wedding rings, a floral bouquet, a night in a hotel and their very own 12-gauge shotgun.
A justice of the peace, dressed in an orange hunting outfit, will marry the couples simultaneously in front of the store's wildlife display. (Last-minute wedding gifts at the Bargain Cave, anyone?) Afterward the couples will don camo and hunting gear and pose for a group photo with their shotguns.
"Whether they clear the screening process [for the gun] is a whole other story," chuckles Johnson & Johnson morning-show producer Scott Bigger. "That's not our problem."
The event can't compare in size to K-Bull's past mass weddings, which featured up to 93 couples, but that's only because the Salt Lake City country-music station limited the number of wedding wannabes. K-Bull received more than 350 e-mails from Utah couples wanting to participate.
"We thought people would be turned off by how 'redneck' this type of ceremony might seem. But as it turns out, that's why people love it so much," says co-host Joe Johnson. "Our biggest concern is keeping some of our grooms with their bride during the vows instead of trying to shop!"
To pick the dozen lucky couples, K-Bull chose only those with the most interesting courtship stories. Here are some of the best:
* After dating his girlfriend for more than a decade, one West Jordan man promised her they'd finally tie the knot if the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl.
* A Kearns woman is marrying a neighbor she caught watching her through binoculars
while she was sunbathing.
* A Davis County man captured his fiancee's heart by spending more than $300 to win her a stuffed animal at Lagoon.
* One couple met after she flagged him down on Interstate 15.
So given the "shotgun wedding" theme, are these couples just doing this as a stunt? Or maybe for the free gun? Oh, no, says K-Bull's Bigger. "These are all people who really wanted to get married."
Guess you can't watch "Winnie the Pooh," either: Some DVD players these days come equipped with TVGuardian, a new technology that automatically filters offensive language from movies and TV programs. The filter scans the movie's script for naughty words, then mutes the entire phrase in which the word or words appear. According to its slogan, TVGuardian "makes movie time family time again."
Well, thanks to some overzealous filtering by its programmers, TVGuardian also makes movie time "confusing time." One of my Trib colleagues discovered this accidentally when he left the TVGuardian filter on while watching "Toy Story" with his kids. The filter scrubbed from the movie every reference to "Woody."
Brandon Griggs
Mvh
Kim
Jeg er ikke fejlfri,men det er så tæt på at det skræmmer mig.