Katrin, Daisy, Jake, and Damian Mooney at their home in Albany. They have a cat named Marvin K. Mooney. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar
ALBANY — Some people have a picture-perfect wedding.
And then there are the Mooneys.
Katrin and Damian Mooney got married on July 20, 2003, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This story has a nice ending because the two have been married happily ever since, and many things have gone well for them. But their wedding day was not one of them.
The two met in Los Angeles. They were both working in the movie business. Mr. Mooney is an actor, and Mrs. Mooney is a photographer. She happened to be looking at the head shots of the potential actors a friend was picking out for a role, and she noticed a man she liked the looks of.
She told her friend, “I want this one, and I’m going to marry him.”
“Apparently we guys don’t have much say in stuff,” said Mr. Mooney with a laugh at their home in Albany. He noted that the couple’s female dog picked him out, too, one day when they went to the shelter.
Damian and Katrin met in 2002. He gave her a ride related to work, they got lunch, and as they both described it, they have been together pretty much ever since.
She didn’t tell him that she had picked him out from his head shot until after they were married.
A year after they met, they decided to get married and decided that Las Vegas would be a romantic spot. They did not quite elope, but they made plans very quickly for the coming weekend. Mrs. Mooney is originally from Germany, and her parents agreed to come for the wedding.
So they began making arrangements. The first hint that things might not go perfectly was the weather. On the morning of their wedding day, they decided to drive over to the Valley of Fire and watch the sunrise there. But when they left the Valley of Fire, very early in the morning, the car’s thermometer showed that it was 120 degrees.
They had bought some fancy scented candles for favors and put them in the trunk. By the time they got back to the hotel, the candles had become one huge, beautiful-smelling blob.
They went to the courthouse to get their marriage license and got a phone call from Mrs. Mooney’s mother.
“My mom was hysterically telling me they were in New Orleans,” said Mrs. Mooney.
Somehow they had become delayed by immigration at the airport, sprinted to what they thought was the correct gate, and got hurried onto the wrong plane.
“I spent basically the next six or seven hours on the phone with Delta,” said Mr. Mooney. The wedding was set for that evening, and Mrs. Mooney’s parents called in the middle of the day having finally arrived in — Dallas.
Mr. Mooney remembers thinking, “Okay, well they’re a little closer.”
At some point in the afternoon, the parents arrived. (Mr. Mooney’s parents were not able to come). They had been put on the last two seats on the last plane — not together. They had not slept in two days. They basically passed out in the hotel room for a nap and had to be awakened to come to the ceremony. Of course their luggage was lost, so they did not have the clothing they wanted to wear to the wedding.
The ceremony was at the Chapel of Flowers, and Ms. Mooney remembers there was a little bridge she was standing on, and she was so afraid she would drop her husband’s wedding ring into the little river she hardly heard anything that was said. She did not drop the ring, and that was about the only thing that didn’t go wrong.
The couple had a friend who was a professional filmmaker, and they asked him to take the wedding pictures. The man, who we will call Mr. Nameless for the sake of this article, took two rolls of film, 64 shots, apparently attempting some artistic shots with special settings.
The wedding done, the small wedding party and family headed to a reception, where they were all given VIP treatment. Coincidentally, some of Mr. Mooney’s friends spoke German, so almost everyone at the reception was speaking German except for him. The one comment that was made to him in English was his bride’s father, who smiled and said, “If you hurt my daughter I will kill you,” then handed him a beer.
Meanwhile Mr. Nameless had borrowed Mr. Mooney’s best man’s extremely expensive car, a BMW worth about $120,000, and Mr. Nameless was nowhere to be found. Somehow in the course of the evening, someone Mr. Nameless did not know very well managed to take the Beemer for a joyride. The car was brought back several hours later but had dents all over it. Meanwhile the car’s owner was not having a very good time at the reception, wondering what happened to his car and calling people trying to find it.
Mr. Mooney got about six calls all through the night from his desperate best man even after they had gone to bed.
The next morning, bright and early, Mrs. Mooney’s parents knocked on the door of their room. The luggage had showed up, including their presents. Of course they wanted to give them their wedding presents as soon as possible!
When they got back to Los Angeles and got the film developed, they found out that not one photo taken by Mr. Nameless had come out. Every single shot of 64 was double or triple exposed, blurry and basically not usable. They have three photos taken by other people of their wedding day and none of the ceremony.
It took the Mooneys a while before they could really laugh about all the problems of their wedding day. But seven years later they can laugh about everything but the complete lack of photos. Ironically, Mrs. Mooney is a photographer and wedding photography is a big part of her work.
The couple moved east to Boston at first, and then decided they really wanted to get out of the city. They found their current home in Albany four years ago and remodeled it and put in some insulation. They have wonderful neighbors, Ron and Ruth Curtiss. Even though they have no family in the area, they have the Curtisses, and Mr. Curtiss told Mr. Mooney, “One good neighbor is worth ten relatives.”
Mr. Mooney is still acting, and he has found that living in Vermont has not hurt his career. He is still getting calls, and he suspects that his willingness to sort of step back from the fray might have somehow enhanced his career.
“Getting away from Los Angeles has helped me get jobs,” he said. He’s also enjoyed working with QNEK Productions locally.
Mrs. Mooney set up her own business as a photographer by making a web site.
“I placed a little ad in the Barton Chronicle,” she said, and she has had plenty of work.
“We have so many fantastic locations,” she said, especially if a couple is looking for a natural setting for photographs.
Mr. and Mrs. Mooney said they love the area and have found a surprising amount of culture tucked away in rural Vermont. Mr. Mooney’s father was a jazz musician, and he has found some great live jazz right in St. Johnsbury.
Mrs. Mooney said her parents did not believe her when she described how remote their home was. She told them that in the winter, basically the only thing to do at the house was skiing and snowshoeing. Her parents said they would just walk on the sidewalks, and she said there aren’t any, then they said they would just take the bus.
When they found out there was no bus, they decided to just go for a walk on the road. The Mooneys live on Delano Road, which eventually leads to Albany Center. Mrs. Mooney was a little afraid that her parents would try to walk to Albany Center, which is several miles, in the cold and snow.
“The funniest part was when they said if they get lost, they’ll just call us on their cell phone.”
The Mooneys gave up their cell phones soon after moving to their home in Albany, where there is no coverage.
This coming summer the Mooneys plan to celebrate their seventh anniversary with a big party.
Mrs. Mooney said they are going to have Mooney Highland Games.
“I’m going to finally have a wedding cake,” she said with a smile.
Asked their advice for couples planning a wedding and trying to avoid problems, Mrs. Mooney said, “Expect things to go wrong.”
“It’s sort of like a theater production,” said Mr. Mooney. He said the little things that go wrong don’t really matter.
“What it is really about, it’s about two people saying we’re going to take on life together. It’s a celebration of that.”
