THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 15, 1994 TAG: 9408150283
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Maybe Sonya Wingo and Mark Denny didn't have your typical wedding ceremony.
No church. No tuxedos. No champagne toast.
Not even a relative to hear them exchange vows.
But, man, what a reception.
The Virginia Beach couple chose the rolling hills of Saugerties, N.Y., as their altar, the 350,000-strong crowd at Woodstock '94 as their guests.
They planned the wedding weeks ago: She wore white, he wore shorts. A Saugerties town justice made it official.
And it was going to be a surprise for their families, until the two talked with a reporter whose story about the wedding was dispatched nationwide.
``Oh my goodness, they did what?'' gasped Anne Denny, mother of the groom, when contacted by The Virginian-Pilot.
``That's incredible. I don't believe this. What a way to find out.''
Whoops.
Actually, family members weren't entirely caught off guard. Denny, 27, and Wingo, 24, had planned to marry for more than a year, though they could never settle on an appropriate time and place.
The two met at Bayside High School in Virginia Beach. She works in a medical office, he works as a carpenter.
And the two love rock music so much - Denny plays the guitar - that family members considered it fitting that the couple would join in holy matrimony while celebrating rock 'n' roll's holiest event.
``He loves music so much, we were saying they'd probably get married up there,'' said Jodi Denny, Mark's sister-in-law.
``But we were kidding,'' she said. ``This is really wild.''
The ceremony took place Saturday at 10 a.m., atop a hill at Snyder's Farm overlooking the Woodstock masses. The driving rains hadn't hit yet, and the weekend's music was just getting under way.
In all, four couples climbed through holes in the fence surrounding the crowd to exchange vows on the hill. Two more were married later in the day.
``It was a lovely wedding,'' said Sheila McCarthy, a Saugerties court clerk who served as a witness for the Denny/Wingo wedding.
``The bride wore a white dress with pretty white sandals and had a bouquet of wild flowers,'' she said. ``He was wearing Bermuda shorts. I don't remember what else.''
Afterward, Denny gazed across the mass of tents where the two had pitched camp and said, ``We got a honeymoon site right in the middle of all that.'' A reporter wrote it down, and an electronic announcement moved over news wires across the country.
The surprise was spoiled, but family members said they didn't mind.
Now when the couple get back from the anniversary festival, they'll have a little surprise of their own.
``I had kind of hinted to them that we'd appreciate it if they'd just go and do it quietly,'' Anne Denny said, laughing.
``I guess they did it,'' she said. ``And at Woodstock. Wow.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Sonya Wingo and Mark Denny
by CNB