Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 14, 1995 TAG: 9502140102
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS-BANKS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Long
You could call it the little shop of lovers.
At 10 minutes to 5 last Thursday, Robinson was peering out from her storefront window while other merchants in the business district were getting ready to call it a day. The afternoon sun threw shadows on the lumps of snow hugging the curbs of Main Street.
"They should be here any time now," Robinson said excitedly. "Let's see, what were their names?"
Robinson, 73, bustled over to the table where she keeps her notes. She moved with the friskiness of a nervous cat.
"Darlene and Darrell - double D's!" she exclaimed, examining her handwritten memo. "Darlene Brown and Darrell Webb. They said they just wanted a quick 'I do'."
She exhaled a nervous sigh.
"I don't guess you ever get over being uptight," she said with a smile. "It's such an important ceremony, performing a marriage."
Irene Robinson began marrying folks in the autumn of her life.
It was last September, to be exact.
She said a "whim" sent her to the clerk's office at the Pulaski County Courthouse five months ago. After 30 years in the wedding-planning business, Robinson had a brainstorm.
"I thought being commissioned as a marriage celebrant would complete the whole picture," she said.
Robinson, who operates The Wedding Center in Pulaski with floral designer Lisa Roop and fashion designer Emmy Lou Frazier, also thought it might be good for business.
"It really is a one-stop shop," she said as she stood in The Wedding Center near a rack of neatly pressed tuxedos.
In addition to offering bridal gowns and veils, tuxedos, bridesmaid's dresses, cosmetics, flowers, candles, candelabra and wedding gifts, Robinson now offers to tie the knot, too.
"We can do the whole shebang," she quipped.
Circuit Judge Colin Gibb signed the permit commissioning Robinson as a civil officer with the power to perform marriages. Tom McCarthy and R. David Warburton, both attorneys in Pulaski, also are commissioned.
The lawyers usually execute the civil ceremonies at the courthouse.
Robinson marries people in her shop.
"We had an open house recently," she noted. "One lady who came was aghast. She said, 'This is like Las Vegas!'"
Robinson's eyes twinkled with amusement.
"This is happiness. It's very rewarding to me," she said.
Robinson's shop looks like a real-life Valentine with its plush red velvet sofa and chair, rack of white lace gowns and colorful sprays of silk flowers.
She also adds her own special touches to the ceremonies she performs here.
"I always take a snapshot of the bride and groom," she said. "I like to send them a picture with a little note."
"This day and age, a lot of people want to come in and get married quickly. It's usually sweet and short."
"Some couples can't take their eyes off each other," she added. "There's love and you can see it."
Robinson said most of her clients come dressed "very casual" for the ceremony, but she usually doesn't notice their wedding attire.
"I look in their eyes," she explained. "I'm an eye looker."
"I can tell when they're happy or nervous or scared, when they're telling the truth or telling a story."
Robinson said she won't forget the young couple from Manassas she married three weeks ago. She suspects they eloped.
"This couple was so in love. Somehow they didn't want their parents to know about [the marriage] because they had a big church wedding planned for next year."
"The bride, who had a lovely voice, had taped a song. When the song started, my eyes welled up and I lost my cool. I could hardly perform the ceremony."
Since September, Robinson has married six couples in civil ceremonies at her shop.
Last Thursday, she was waiting for lucky No. 7.
Just before 5 o'clock, the quiet on Main Street was interrupted by the slamming of car doors.
The door to The Wedding Center swung open and a breathless group hurried inside.
"Are you all shaking like a leaf?" Robinson asked them.
"I'm scared to death," the bride muttered under her breath.
The couple was accompanied by well-wishers in their immediate family. The bride's children, 4-year-old Teonika and 5-year-old Cedric, were wide-eyed and fidgety as their aunts pinned flowers on their fancy clothes.
"Let's have a little music, shall we?" Robinson said, flipping the button on a cassette recorder.
Robinson beckoned the couple to a spot between two large floral arrangements as the strains of "Somewhere in Time" filled the shop.
"We are gathered here today to join Darrell and Darlene...," Robinson began quietly.
The bride's hands trembled.
Two minutes and $25 later, it was almost over.
"By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Virginia, I now pronounce you husband and wife," Robinson said.
There was a pause.
"Now you may kiss her!" Robinson chirped.
After the ceremony, the bride seemed relieved.
"It was fast and I didn't have to think about it," she said.
"I loved it," the groom said, beaming. "It was done nice and I'm marrying the woman that I want to marry."
The children, too, seemed glad when all the snapshots were taken and they were putting on their coats.
"I hate it when they kiss," 5-year-old Cedric said.
At 10 minutes after 5, Darlene and Darrell Webb were in their car. Pink and white balloons bounced in the breeze as they pulled onto Main Street.
"See," Robinson said as she peered out her storefront window, "that's so rewarding to me."
Robinson, who turns 74 next month, said she has no plans for retiring yet.
"I feel like as long as you're active, you're happy," she said.
Joe Robinson, her husband of 53 years, is retired now but wasn't really surprised with his wife's new undertaking. Robinson said after all these years her husband knows her pretty well.
"He said, 'Mama, you're something else again.'"
by CNB