Couple unknowingly books wedding during opener
NORMAN — Jimmy Irwin thought it was a joke.
It was April 25, and a friend sent him the news.
Oklahoma's season-opening game against Houston had been moved from the Saturday of Labor Day weekend to Sunday night.
“Very funny,” Irwin replied. “Sunday night ?” he thought. “Not very likely. I'm not buying it.”
It was true. The Sooners would be playing on his wedding night.
While more than 80,000 fans will be filing into Norman' s college football cathedral, Irwin and his fiancee Emily Evans will be getting married at Crossings Community Church in Oklahoma City.
Irwin and Evans met during their first week of OU law school. They were assigned seats next to each other in torts class in the fall of 2016, and started dating the next semester. Irwin proposed on spring break the following year, and they planned their wedding for the month after their bar exams.
The couple chose a Sunday wedding for a reason. Not in their 125-year history have the Sooners played a regularseason football game on a Sunday.
Sept. 1 was supposed to be free of conflict, but perhaps they should've sent OU a save-the-date.
The football sch edu le change wouldn't be announced until a year after the wedding date was set. OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said that moving the game to Sunday was the only way to ensure a nighttime kickoff. That decision resulted in Irwin and Evans unintentionally breaking a cardinal-rule for weddings this time of year.
“We knew how big of a deal it was to not have a wedding on the same night as an OU football game,” Irwin said. “And especially the opening game of the season. Everyone in Oklahoma knows that's a big no-no.”
Especially the Irwins and Evans. Evans' family shares a suite at the stadium. They planned to host members of the wedding party there for the game. Irwin is a fourthgeneration OU graduate. His dad, Jim Irwin, said he took his son to his first Sooners game in the mid 1990s.
The families are intertwined
with OU football.
“It was like, 'Oh crap. What do we do?'” Evans said.
There was nothing to be done. They had passed the point of getting deposits back from the venue.
After they wrestled with reality, they laughed.
“Push forward and just accept that some of our Okie friends were not going to be very happy with us,” Jimmy Irwin said.
Castiglione and the OU athletic department are aware of other couples who ran into the same problem. But rather than harboring ill will, Irwin and Evans are embracing the oddity of it all.
The ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. The couple should be married just before kickoff at 6:30 p.m.
Jimmy Irwin hopes guests will listen to the radio call on the short drive from Crossings to the reception at Gaillardia Country Club. While the newlyweds take photos, the game will be on TVs during cocktail hour.
“We're going to have big screens ,” Jim Irwin, the groom's father, said. “We're going to have it on throughout where the wedding and reception will be.”
“Not at the wedding,” Susie Irwin, Jimmy's mom, playfully reminded her husband.
“Not at the wedding,” Jim confirmed. “I'm sorry. If it were up to me, I would put a screen up during the wedding.”
Even on the dance floor, Irwin and Evans' guests won't miss the action. They've asked the DJ to announce every OU score.
Oklahoma fans voted to pack the stadium in a white out Sunday night.
Thirty miles north, as she's walking down the aisle, Evans will be in the appropriate attire.