Couple Gets Creative To Fill Church Pews for Wedding Using 100 Donated Cardboard Cutouts
Cardboard cutout wedding guests will make for a not-so-cookie-cutter wedding as a Michigan couple prepares to tie the knot during the coronavirus pandemic.
After Amy Simonson and Dan Stuglik’s wedding plans were disrupted amid the outbreak, a packaging company donated more than 100 cardboard cutouts to pose as stand-ins for the family and friends who couldn’t attend due to Michigan’s stay-at-home order.
The wedding was planned for this Saturday.
Menasha Packaging Co. in Coloma made cutouts to resemble guests tall and short, young and old, with long hair, short hair and ponytails.
Stuglik “was just looking for a general person shape, but I was able to make a little bit more realistic audience for them,” Ted Harris, customer service and design manager at Menasha, told The Herald-Palladium.
The groom, a Coloma Township police officer, said he’ll forever be thankful to Menasha for helping him do something special for his fiancée.
“I wanted to do something [creative] so she wouldn’t walk down the aisle to an empty church,” he said.
“That was a painful part, that her wedding was being stripped away from her, but Menasha helped bring a little back.”
“The switch from 50 to 12 was the hardest,” Simonson said.
“If my uncle that I haven’t seen in six years isn’t there, that’s fine, but my grandma isn’t coming, and part of my bridesmaids. My best friends won’t be there.”
Luke Arendash, director of sales and operations at Menasha, said they were “all in” when they knew it meant helping a member of their local law enforcement.
“We’re definitely in an unprecedented time, a trying time, and being able to provide just a little bit of joy to anybody feels good.”
“I think we both have peace now,” Stuglik said, “because it’s stripped down to what it should be, which is us and God, getting married.”
“As people of faith, we have enough right now.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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