Soldier in surprise wedding at gymnastics meet
Soldier in surprise wedding at gymnastics meet
By Amy Howell - Cincinnati Enquirer
Posted : Sunday Dec 21, 2008 10:01:31 EST
Kara Patterson arrived at Duke Energy Convention Center Saturday morning to coach her gymnastics students in a downtown tournament.
But before the meet was over, she had traded in her Adidas warm-up pants and T-shirt for a white wedding gown — and had become the blushing bride in a surprise wedding planned by her fiancée, Army Staff Sgt. Ray Hignite, and her father, Brett Patterson.
“I didn’t think it would be anything like this,” Patterson said. “It was really shocking.”
In November, Hignite, 25, got the news that he would leave Jan. 1 to begin training for an engineering operation in Afghanistan. The couple, who were engaged in February, decided to get married in a simple, private ceremony at Brett and Debbie Patterson’s West Chester home on Dec. 27.
“She always wanted a nice wedding, something big,” Brett said.
“When she said she just wanted something with a few of us in our living room, I was flabbergasted, because I know that’s not her.”
Patterson, 20, is a coach at Gym-Nation Gymnastics and Cheerleading in Mason and a student at the University of Cincinnati who has been a gymnast since she was 8.
Hignite served in Kuwait and Iraq in 2002 and was deployed again in 2005.
“She wanted to know in her mind that she was married, to have that,” Hignite said. “And heaven forbid if something happened to me over there, that was kind of another reason, although we didn’t talk about it,” he said of his assignment, which is expected to last 12-14 months.
Because the wedding planned for Brett and Debbie Patterson’s home was just immediate family, with no need for elaborate planning or catering, “she kind of left the planning in my hands,” Brett said.
Patterson said she noticed her family and fiancée “acting weird” and had her suspicions — particularly after a rumor got out at Gym-Nation that there might be a wedding at the Cincinnati Winter Sports Festival, a three-day cheerleading, dance and gymnastics competition at the Duke Center.
But, every time, family and friends threw her off-course — suggesting they hold the wedding in a park if the weather was nice or giving updates on the wedding and the chaplain who would officiate.
“It was like we were planning two weddings, but only one was real,” said maid of honor Jodi Stewart.
Stewart, a fellow gymnast, told Patterson to bring her dress Saturday so they could make sure the red ribbons on Patterson’s gown matched the dress Stewart had bought. Then, she told Patterson she just “had to” put it on to show other coaches, and asked one of them to show her how to pin a veil.
Her wedding ensemble complete, Patterson rounded the corner from the judges’ room and saw her brother, Adam Patterson, a Navy pilot in flight school in Pensacola, Fla., who wasn’t expected in town until next week.
“At that point, she knew,” Adam said. “We said, ‘Are you ready to get married?’ “
Hignite, with a cluster of medals jingling like bells on his dress uniform, stood waiting on a blue gymnastics mat, with teams of young gymnasts in hot-pink and sequined leotards sitting cross-legged in front of him, grinning.
Patterson fought back tears and a nervous smile as she and Hignite exchanged rings and vows.
Although the ceremony, which took less than 10 minutes, was broken by an occasional smatter of applause from a men’s gymnastics event under way at the end of the expansive room, the thousand or so spectators and teams sent up the loudest cheer when the Rev. Nancy Sexton announced, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”
Patterson, still looking awestruck, and Hignite, “still shaking,” hugged their friends, thanked well-wishing strangers and walked out the front doors of the convention center to a white horse-drawn carriage that whisked them off to box seats for a performance of “The Nutcracker” at the Aronoff Center, then dinner at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, which opened early so the couple could enjoy a private dinner.
“I’m a nobody, and everyone just opened up their hearts to make this happen,” Brett says.