Cupid in the Capitol: getting hitched at the statehouse offers a beautiful, historic setting.

• Author: Kamin-Meyer, Tami
• Position: Bethany Barker's wedding

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When Bethany Barker got married in the Ohio Statehouse on May 26, 2007, she and husband Tom were the first couple to do so since 1870. That's because the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, the organization overseeing the facility, had recently reversed a long-held policy forbidding nuptials in the seat of Ohio government.

Every state has its own rules regarding weddings in the statehouse, ranging from absolutely not to rolling out the red carpet for wedding photographs, ceremonies and receptions. Colorado, Georgia, Illinois and New Mexico ban weddings from their capitols. Massachusetts also bans weddings in its capitol, but does allow them in the Old State House Museum, once the seat of the colonial government and now Boston's History Museum.

Why would a couple choose to get hitched in the building housing state government? The reasons number as many as the rose petals in a bride's bouquet.

WHY THE STATEHOUSE?

The Ohio Statehouse played a special role in Barker's life, so getting married there was a natural choice, she says. Her father is a former member of the House of Representatives. She says it was a thrill to walk down the Capitol steps--on the House side, of course, in honor of her dad, John Schlichter. "The rotunda was so beautifully laid out and our guests were floored," she says.

Getting married at the Ohio Statehouse "gives a wedding a historical perspective," says Richard H. Finan, a former president of the Ohio Senate and the National Conference of State Legislatures who served in the Ohio General Assembly from 1973 to 2003. He is also the chairman of Capitol Square board, a post he has held for several years.

According to Finan, the board decided to permit weddings in the Ohio Statehouse to increase its exposure and generate revenue for maintenance and repair of the structure, completed in 1861. Caring for the statehouse, which includes an attached Senate building completed in 1901, is an expensive undertaking, says Gregg Dodd, deputy director of communications and education for the board. Since the Ohio Statehouse reopened for weddings and receptions, six have occurred there, generating $48,000, says Dodd.

For Nick Munoz, getting married to wife Jessica in the West Virginia statehouse was more about the setting than having a personal connection to the structure. As an architect, he believes, "the setting in which an event takes place has as much bearing on our memories as the event itself."

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