R.I.P David Weinlick
David Weinlick took his last breath on Sunday, ending a love story set in motion nearly 20 years ago when he allowed his friends to pick his bride and then married her five minutes later in the Mall of America.
It was a moment that propelled Weinlick and Elizabeth "Bethy" Runze into the national limelight as they each said "I do" in the mall's massive rotunda. Weinlick, who was diagnosed with colon cancer about a year ago, died Sunday at age 48.
"If someone would have told me on the day of the wedding that you're going to marry this stranger and you're going to have this awesome relationship and fantastic love but it's going to end when he's 48, do you still want to do it? I'd say yeah," Bethy Weinlick said Tuesday evening.
"I ended up with the greatest love story of my life," she said.
Weinlick's unconventional way of finding a wife began with a joke years earlier.
Tired of being asked when he was going to get married, he'd reply, "June 13, 1998."
With the date nearing and no bride in sight, longtime friend Steve Fletcher and now first-term Minneapolis City Council member suggested structuring the wedding like a political convention. The 28-year-old groom-in-waiting turned to the arranged marriage process.
He and a friend issued news releases, recorded a commercial and placed an ad in the Minnesota Daily. Naysayers said it was a great way to meet people but not necessarily a good way to start a marriage. Odds were the marriage wouldn't last, they said.
Hundreds of women applied to be Weinlick's bride.
The mall hosted a bridal campaign mixer for the final 28 candidates, and David's family and friends overwhelmingly chose Bethy Runze.
The memory of that day is forever etched in her memory. There in the basement of the Mall of America, Weinlick, dressed in a tux, stood there smiling and crying. "He came over to me, got down on one knee, put his hands out to mine and asked: 'Will you marry me?' "
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http://www.startribune.com/david-weinlick-whose-buddies-picked-his-bride-at-mall-of-america-for-instant-wedding-dies/483342201/
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