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The bride entered the clubhouse and hugged a cousin she hadn't spoken to in seven years. She wore a knee-length white dress of tulle and satin adorned with white rosettes and purple flowers. She held a bouquet of lavender roses.
Celeste Little, a recovery nurse at All Children's Hospital, didn't care whether anyone saw her before the wedding. She wasn't even really sure what was going to happen next.
It was her wedding, sure. But she'd left the mechanics of the ceremony up to her fiance, James Levesque.
All she knew was that Darth Vader would be involved.
• • •
It was a second marriage for both. He was divorced. She was a widow.
Jami was into Star Wars and stormtroopers. Celeste had discovered this when she'd visited his third-grade classroom at Bay Point Elementary in St. Petersburg for the first time four years before and noticed not just the bearded dragon, the snakes and the frogs but all the Star Wars mugs, the Jedi starfighter model, the figurines of Darth Vader, Yoda, the Imperial officers.
Soon she found herself watching the six episodes of the Star Wars movies over and over, and then different versions. Original cut. Widescreen. The VHS version. And finally, there were the quotes, which he used often and for effect, like this one from Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.
For his 40th birthday, she bought him an official stormtrooper costume, getting help for the $1,200 cost from family and friends. While researching the purchase, she found a group called the 501st Legion — Star Wars aficionados with authentic costumes who wear them for charity events. He'd joined and made friends with a couple of other stormtroopers and a Darth Vader, who happened to be a pastor.
It wasn't that Celeste wanted a Darth Vader to marry her. It was that she didn't mind.
"I knew it would make Jami happy," she said.
• • •
In the clubhouse at Springwood Villas in Pinellas Park, Darth Vader made his way up to the stage. The Imperial March boomed through the loudspeakers.
Celeste, 36, looked around at the 100 or so guests gathered at tables on either side of the dance floor. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, but then two stormtroopers appeared and flanked her.
Darth Vader beckoned from the podium on the stage with a black finger.
Celeste made her way up the steps, stood to one side and faced Darth Vader.
She looked out at the guests, smiled awkwardly. Seconds turned into minutes. Where was Jami? What's going on? she thought.
She had her vows folded and wrapped around the handle of the bouquet. She'd written how she'd dreamed her whole life of finding someone like him. How every day they were together he made her so incredibly happy. How she promised to love him, to respect him and to watch Star Wars episodes with him.
Just then, he emerged from a door. His hands were up behind his head. He wore a white shirt and khaki pants. Behind him, two stormtroopers with blasters drawn. Jami, 41, made his way up onto the stage.
Darth Vader breathed heavily.
"A marriage is a bond between a man and a woman, a bond like no other," he heaved, dark and deep.
"If anyone does not think these two should be together, speak now or forever hold your peace."
With that, he held up his lightsaber.
Leonora LaPeter Anton can be reached at lapeter@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8640.
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