Mesquite, NV-

The winners of the Virgin Valley Community Theatre Group were announced at the beginning of the week. The whole contest has announced at the beginning of February 16th as an idea from Ken Juber, a local wedding officiant, and part-time actor who resides in Sun City. The contest idea was accepted by the community theatre group as part of their marketing for their now playing show, “Wedding Bell Blues.”

The contest called for engaged couples to apply for the chance to be married on stage during an intermission of the play on the performance day of their choice by Juber. The decorations and set-up were provided as it is used for the play and then Eureka added an incentive. The winning couple would get a one-night stay at the Eureka with a $100 gift certificate for their fine-dining restaurant Gregory’s.

After the contest was announced, The Front Porch would then offer to provide the bouquet, corsage, and flower arrangement for the real wedding. Also, several other items have been donated, including cupcakes for all attendees.

“This is a great opportunity to help the winning couple who wants to avoid the financial strain of a wedding but make it fun and original for the couple as well,” stated Officiant Ken Juber.

The winning couple is Shelly Donn Allen and David Paul Christensen. The couple has been residents of Mesquite for just under a year. Allen works for Virgin Valley Disposal as a financial manager while Christensen works for Union Pacific.

“We saw the announcement of the contest on Facebook,” said Allen. “It looked like a fun and unique idea so we said, let’s do it.”

“We thought about how we never heard of anyone doing anything like this and we thought it would be a lot of fun,” said Christensen.

So they applied for the contest and were picked and won. Allen is from Malad, Idaho while Christensen is from Wyoming (mainly Cheyenne are). When asked about how they met, they replied.

“Zoosk. Yep we met online, the dating app had us being within a 100 miles radius of each other we were not close to that in distance, but we still met in Logan, Utah,” said Shelly.

They hit it off and have been together since.

David, 48, travels a lot for his work with Union Pacific but has found this opportunity as a chance to be really great for them both.

“It is so great that we don’t have to pay and plan that much as it is provided by the contest and the sponsors,” said the soon-to-be groom. “Really cool for the town to be part of our ceremony.”

Shelly, 50, stated how this helps them. “We didn’t want to make a big deal kind of wedding that costs a fortune. We both were married before and we just want to make it special for us and we thought how more special can it be than on a theatre stage during an intermission of a play.”

The winning couple has chosen the March 19th performance at 7:00 pm for their special day. During the intermission of that performance of “The Wedding Bell Blues or How Virgin Valley Got its Groove On: an Original Musical Melodrama,” the couple will give their vows to each other and say “I do”.

The play by the Virgin Valley Community Theatre Group will be at the Community Theatre located at 150 N Yucca and tickets are $20 each. The play is an original piece written, produced, and directed by Mesquite residents Susan Kjellson and Nancy Arnold. You can purchase tickets at www.mctnv.com or www.vvtgnv.com. You can also buy them at the Box Office 1 hour before performance dates.

The couple did a couple of rehearsals, have already bought their rings from the Eureka Gift Shop, eventually, honeymoon in Washington, and “Get back to real life” as they stated.

“Still this will be something we never forget,” said both almost in unison.