For These Two, Home Is Where the Heart Is : Wedding: Richard Mallery and Debbie Kilcoyne, off the streets for less than two weeks, exchange vows, thanks to a church that helps the homeless.

For better or worse had special meaning Saturday as Richard Mallery and Debbie Kilcoyne exchanged wedding vows.

Homeless but in love, the couple got married in a Huntington Beach chapel and held their reception in the shelter where they’ve been sleeping on cots since they came off the streets Oct. 30.

She wore a borrowed white gown and shoes. He wore a black tuxedo rented at Sears with church donations. But the I-Do’s were no less magical.

“This,” said Debbie Mallery, “is the wedding I always dreamed of.”

The traditional ceremony was made possible by the First United Methodist Church, which waived the pastor’s fee and rounded up a donated cake and flowers from local businesses and the 300-member flock.

The couple had longed to get married but could never afford it. On Tuesday, church elders offered to help. That afternoon, Richard proposed.

“The people here have been so great. They’ve arranged for everything. They got me a tuxedo, everything,” he said.

The church is one of 48 in Orange County that participates in the Interfaith Shelter Network, a program begun last year in which the homeless are housed and fed for 90 days while they find jobs and save 80% of their earnings for rent deposits. The Mallerys are among 12 people staying at First United Methodist.

“They’re like kids, very romantic. They’d wanted to get married but couldn’t afford it,” said John Woerner, the church’s program coordinator. “They remind us that many of us are really only two or three paychecks away from being homeless.”

For 2 1/2 years, the couple lived in an Anaheim motel room, shared until recently with Debbie’s three children from a previous marriage. They are fighting to regain custody of the children, who are living in three foster homes and could not attend their wedding.

Three months ago, Debbie lost her job as a restaurant hostess. And six weeks ago, Richard lost his job as a forklift mechanic when the company went under.

“In a motel, if you don’t pay the rent the day it’s due, you’re out,” Richard said Saturday. With five mouths to feed, “we didn’t have any savings.” Debbie’s mother could not help them, and Richard’s father is elderly; he tried by giving his son his worn-out 1970 station wagon.

For 5 1/2 weeks they lived out of the beat-up Chevy, which they parked on an Anaheim street behind a car dealership. They marveled that police did not roust them because the car was crammed full, its windows curtained. They did not eat for the first several days until they heard about food handouts.

Other homeless people told them about a church in Fullerton where they might find help getting jobs and shelter. They said that church referred them to United Methodist. The couple spent five more days on the streets before the church’s role in the Interfaith Shelter’s three-month seasonal program for the homeless began Oct. 30.

Applicants with substance abuse and mental problems are not allowed. Those accepted are fed, clothed and given a place to stay, usually dormitory-style, at the participating churches while they search for work. They risk expulsion if they don’t find jobs within 30 days of admission, a cornerstone of the program. Individual job counselors work closely with the homeless participants in helping them find employment.

Richard got a job as an auto mechanic less than a week after they were taken in by the shelter. Debbie is being trained by a church member to be a waitress, work that provides “more advancement” opportunity than her last job as a hostess.

Saturday morning, before the wedding, the couple walked hand-in-hand to a bank to open a joint account into which they will deposit the 80% of their earnings that is required of all shelter inhabitants as savings toward rental deposits.

Having worked less than a week, Richard had no money for a wedding ring. But that didn’t matter. He slipped onto Debbie’s finger a ring he’d given her a few years ago when he was flush, sobbing through half the ceremony and stealing an early kiss. His 14-year-old daughter, Stacey, serving as bridesmaid, sniffled through the service.

They’d both been married before in Las Vegas--she because she was pregnant, he because a buddy dared him to.

“This is more like the real thing,” Debbie beamed at the reception, replete with flowers and wedding cake, photographs and a videotaping. “All the decorations, it’s like a dream.”

Lest they spend their wedding night in a church hall, however, a member of the congregation Saturday morning anonymously donated enough money to pay for a night at the Hilton Waterfront in Huntington Beach.

Today, it’s back to the shelter.