'Wedding Singer' cast helps couple on wedding day

Talk about a wedding to remember.

Devon and Sentil Walker of Hopewell spent more than a year planning their nuptials. Then Mother Nature stepped in and threatened to ruin the whole thing.

The Saturday afternoon ceremony and reception at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Richmond went on despite the steadily falling snow. That most of the guests couldn't make it didn't hamper the fun. A new cast stepped in instead.

That's a new cast, literally.

While the Walkers were fretting about the possibility of getting married before a sparse crowd, the cast from the touring Broadway show "The Wedding Singer" — based on the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore romantic comedy from 1998 about a wedding singer finding love — was milling about the lobby after its show at the Landmark Theater was canceled.

"I just saw all these people and asked who they were," Devon said. "We had room, so I invited them."

The cast members accepted the invitation.

They went to the wedding and then followed the party to the reception. In character, it turned out. They sang. They danced. They helped everyone have a great time.

The new crew also included a handful of flight attendants, a family from Portsmouth, and a few church groups stranded at the hotel.

"[The Walkers] definitely have a story to tell," said Marissa Queen, the assistant front-office manager at the hotel. "Everybody kind of just went. It was great."

The minister couldn't make it, but the photographer could. As luck would have it, he's ordained, so he played two roles, Devon said.

"He took pictures and married us," he said. "It was crazy."

Leonard Jones II said he had a feeling he'd better bring along more than his cameras.

"The Lord spoke to me and said, 'Bring your manual,' " said the Methodist minister from Chester.

He promptly forgot the manual, his guide to performing weddings. But as luck — or divine providence — would have it, the Bible in his car included a ceremony.

"It was just meant to be," he said.

He said he never considered turning back. Not even after twice getting stuck on the way.

"As I told them during the wedding, either it was meant to be, or we were not in our right minds. All I know is, it was a great time."

Sentil said it wasn't the wedding she was expecting, but it was certainly memorable.

"Oh, it was great," she said.

Queen said she called the bride Friday and asked if the party wanted to cancel, or at least scale back its expectations, because of the weather.

"She said definitely no," Queen said.

Devon said he wished more of the intended guests had been able to attend but he was happy with the way things worked out. He wasn't a "Wedding Singer" fan — he wasn't quite sure what it was before Saturday — but he likes what the cast did for his party.

"It brought a lot of energy to it," he said. "They helped bring life to the reception."

The sight of professional singers and dancers didn't intimidate the groom.

"I still did my thing on the dance floor," he said. "I just maybe wasn't as good as I thought I'd be."

Zachary Reid is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.