SUPER BOWL XXI : NOTEBOOK : Their Teams Made the Big Game, Now They’re Taking the Big Leap

Couples rooting for both teams Sunday decided this was a Super Bowl they didn’t want to forget. So they got married.

In Moonachie, N.J., a dentist and his hygienist exchanged vows in a bar at halftime, and a couple outside Denver were married just before tuning in the game on television.

Tom Greco, 39, and Claudia Briscoe, 31, both of South Orange, N.J., were married in a 10-minute ceremony before a crush of reporters and TV news cameras at Manny’s, a tavern known as a hangout for Giants Coach Bill Parcells and his players.

“I’m very happy,” said Greco, who had promised Briscoe to tie the knot between halves if the Giants made it to the Super Bowl. “I didn’t think it would get this crowded. Now I only hope the Giants can come back,” said Greco.

The Giants, losing 10-9 at the half, won, 39-20.

Greco said he proposed at the two-minute warning of the NFC championship game against the Washington Redskins, when he knew the Giants would be in the Super Bowl.

After the couple were pronounced man and wife, the wedding party dumped a bucket of confetti on them, an evocation of how Giants players dump a bucket of Gatorade on Parcells at the end of victories.

In Westminster, Colo., a suburb of Denver, Jenna Lesh, 25, married Paul Crump, 33, at a pre-Super Bowl wedding.

After the ceremony, some 60 guests, in Broncos sweat shirts and T-shirts, settled down to an orange and blue wedding cake before turning on the big game. Lesh and Crump made their decision to marry two weeks ago, when the Broncos won the AFC championship in Cleveland, said Paul Crump Sr., the bridegroom’s father.