With a filled-out sample ballot, Debbie Kruck took quizzical glances in stride as she strolled in her wedding dress to her polling place at The Casements.
The Ormond Beach woman stitched her own gown, fashioned a silk-rose bouquet and made preparations for the matrimonial ceremony on her fiancé's birthday Tuesday -- which also happened to be Election Day.
The plans for the vows were a little hurried because the groom, full-time Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Tim Forrester, who is responsible for his battalion's supplies, is being deployed Nov. 12.
The ceremony was brief -- a sunrise service before County Judge Stasia Warren on a friend's luminaria-lit dock along the Halifax River in Daytona Beach; her grandparents' rings; a kilt and recorded bagpipes for the groom, of Scottish descent; a doggie tuxedo for their Yorkshire terrier, Santino.
The couple wanted to tie the knot before he jetted off with his Daytona Beach unit to Washington, D.C., to help provide air defense coverage over the nation's capitol.
But they also wanted to vote. So following the ceremony before a dozen friends, where the two promised "to love and to cherish from this day forward," Kruck, now Mrs. Forrester, fulfilled her civil duty. She showed up at her voting place, decked out in crystal shoes, a beaded gown and a veil.
"Besides the fact that it's your duty to vote, I am in Amaral Plaza, in the city of Ormond Beach," said Kruck, a former world-class bodybuilder. Among other mid-term races, the makeup of the Ormond Beach City Commission is a big deal to her Fitness and Pilates Studio on U.S. 1, because she and her neighboring businesses are fighting to get electronic signs.
Poll worker Claudia Archer checked Kruck's identification and asked if she still lived at the same address.
"This is dedication," Archer said. "It makes me so proud." Two other poll workers bearing nametags of Mary and Eva, looked at each other and smiled, as Kruck put on her reading glasses, clutched her red folder and slipped off to a cubicle for privacy.
After voting, Kruck showed off her voting sticker, then attended a wedding breakfast reception at Mango Sun Cafe and Grille in Ormond Beach.
The couple planned to stop off for a change of clothes before they departed to Flagler County later in the morning, where Forrester planned to vote.
The Palm Coast soldier, who felt "it just seemed right" to wed before his deployment, said he had a duty to vote.
"It's what this country was built on," Forrester said. "The power of one voice and one vote can make a difference. It's my duty as a citizen of this country to cast a vote.
"When you cast a vote, you help shape what the new policymakers will be doing, and in this country, when we are going through what we are going through, people are upset. If you don't take the time to cast a vote, then you have no right to complain afterward if you didn't do anything about it."
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http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2010/11/03/prior-engagement.htmlcongrats to the newly weds.
