The bride pulled up to the chapel in a ’66 white Mustang. A few hours later, she was headed for a honeymoon in a kelly green Karmann Ghia, with a husband.
Stephanie Mayer ’74 and Bill Kenney ’72 met as students. In July 1974, weeks after Stephanie graduated, they were married at Sacred Heart Chapel. It must have been a perfect day: formal ceremony, beautiful church, 135 guests, stunning weather and views from the bluff.
But the Mustang is the first hint of unusual, surprising details that become part of this wedding story and its charm.
Bill and Stephanie needed permission from the Archdiocese to marry in the chapel, because Sacred Heart is not a parish. Also, they were married by Bill’s cousin, an L.A. priest, not a Jesuit. That’s not so unusual. But he brought altar boys with him, and Sacred Heart had no small-size surplices. So, Stephanie says, they wore ’70s maroon-and-tan plaid suits throughout the ceremony. Hard to forget that.
What about the two students who posed for a photo with Stephanie? Bill’s friends, she thought. Not so. Now, Stephanie thinks they were a couple of enterprising student workers. “They were just ingenious about having a nice time with good food and drink,” she says. Stephanie and Bill, unfortunately, don’t have the photo. But that Karmann Ghia? “We still have it,” Stephanie says.
Caption:
Bill and Stephanie Kenney at the Bird Nest on their wedding day