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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
New twist on wedding photos
Newlyweds pose as tornado drops down
Cate Eighmey photo Caleb and Candra Pence pose for a wedding photo as a tornado swirls in the background in Harper County, Kan. (CP)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- In the plains of central Kansas, tornadoes are so unremarkable guests barely flinched as a barrel-racing bride wed her bull-riding groom with a twister dropping from the sky in the distance.
Caleb and Candra Pence's wedding last Saturday is generating the kind of buzz usually reserved for celebrity nuptials. The video of the service has gone viral, garnering more than 20,000 views on YouTube and a flurry of media coverage.
"It is amazing how fast it has taken off," said the groom's uncle, Lee Pence, who shot the video.
After Saturday's outdoor service on the groom's family farm near the small south-central Kansas town of Harper, the couple posed for photos with the twister visible behind them. The pictures capture the 21-year-old bride in a white gown and the 22-year-old groom in a cowboy hat and jeans.
About 13 to 16 kilometres away, the twister was damaging a farm and wind turbines.
"I don't know how on earth I will ever top this," said wedding photographer Cate Eighmey, adding she posed the pair for dramatic shots of the newlyweds and the twister behind them.
Eighmey's photo shows what appears to be a second funnel dropping down from the cloud.
The couple has spent their honeymoon in Wyoming fielding media calls. Reached on his cellphone by The Associated Press, Caleb Pence recalled seeing the wall cloud forming as the service was about to begin. But with tornadoes a routine occurrence, the storm was the least of his worries.
"I had my mind on marrying my now-wife," he said.
His bride, a native of northeast Nebraska who had never seen a tornado before, was much less at ease. He said when he told her what was happening, she responded, "I don't want to hear it right now."
Guests checked weather reports on their cellphones. Otherwise, the 20-minute service wasn't altered.
Afterward, the couple made a dramatic horseback ride to the metal farm building that had been transformed into the reception site. They scarcely got inside when the skies opened up and poured down rain.
"I don't know how we did it," Caleb Pence said. "It boggles my mind how perfect it worked."
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 25, 2012 A21
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