COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Ain't no mountain high enough. Ain't no valley low enough. Ain't no phone bill large enough to keep Kristine Rich from marrying her man on Valentine's Day.
So she did just that Tuesday morning, in a small, quick ceremony in a Fort Carson chapel. The groom, Staff Sgt. John Rich, is on a six-month deployment in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They wed via AT&T; Corp.
"We weren't going to let 2,000 miles keep us from getting married on Valentine's Day," Kristine Rich said an hour after the ceremony. "I'm giddy. I can't stop grinning. It's kinda like, 'Ahhh, I got married this morning.' Almost disbelief, but you get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside."
But getting everything ready to make the ceremony legal wasn't easy. Proxy weddings are few and far between. In fact, chaplain Maj. Thomas Day had never performed one before.
"It's not the preferred way, but I guess it'll do," he said.
To make it legal, Sergeant Rich, 41, had to sign an affidavit and a letter saying that he was single, intended to marry his fiance, 37, and that she could hold a proxy wedding.
The paperwork went through and arrived at 5 p.m. Monday. About 17 hours later, at 10 a.m. Tuesday, the deed was done in a simple ceremony that had all the essentials, including matron of honor Mona Sautelle-Seymour and best man Matthew M. Murphy.
The bride wore cowboy boots and a dress that her husband helped her pick out. The sergeant wore his battle-dress uniform and spoke on a speaker phone.
"It was very quick because it was also going to be a huge long-distance phone bill," she said.
But it wasn't any less special. Sergeant Rich's voice saying "I do" -- speaker phone or not -- electrified his bride. "A tingle went all through me from the top of my head," she said.
They met June 14. She was a postal clerk; he was a customer. They flirted. He asked her to dinner. They've been an item ever since.
Unfortunately, the couple's honeymoon will probably have to wait until the end of summer, when Sergeant Rich returns. "We're postponing the honeymoon until . . . whenever," she said with a pause. "But he's worth the wait."