Chapels of Love : Wedding Facilities Tie Knot With Heart : <i> “It’s love, it’s love that makes the world go round.”</i> --Anonymous

Valentine’s Day or not, North County is spinning pretty fast these days. More and more couples are plunging into the marriage pool. Last year in North County, 5,957 marriage licenses were issued out of the county clerk’s office in Vista. In 1989, 5,647 licenses were issued.

Although most weddings are formal affairs held in a church, many couples choose an alternate path to wedded life: walking down the aisle at a wedding chapel.

The average cost of a large, formal church wedding followed by a reception (not including honeymoon) is about $12,000, according to Jim Somers, president of an Encinitas-based company that produces annual bridal bazaars. The cost of getting hitched in a wedding chapel can be as little as $50.

The chapel approach appeals to couples wanting a nondenominational wedding, those without the time to search for a caterer who knows how to carve radishes into heart-shaped roses, those wanting to tie the knot sooner rather than later, and those who would just as soon spend their money on a down payment for a house or a trip to Tahiti.

Whether given a day’s or a month’s notice, most North County chapels try to offer more than a Las Vegas-style wedding. They provide bridal consultants and can recommend caterers, musicians and florists. The bride and groom have lots of choices, from arriving at the chapel in a horse-drawn carriage to saying “I do” on horseback.

Here is a sample of what North County has in the way of nondenominational wedding chapels and facilities.

I DO WEDDINGS

530 W. Vista Way

Vista. 941-5228

In Betty Coplin’s line of work, there is no rest for the weary. Recently laid up in bed with the flu, the marriage minister was still busily booking weddings over the phone for the next day and for as far down the road as August.

Coplin, owner of I Do Weddings in Vista, has married off more than 5,500 couples in the last eight years, an average of about 85 a month. When nearby Camp Pendleton troops were deployed to the Persian Gulf in August, she performed 120 ceremonies for military personnel--32 on just one Saturday.

That’s why the marrying minister blinks nary an eye at her Valentine’s Day schedule. The average 12 weddings she performs on this heartfelt holiday, as well as the 20 ceremonies she did when the holiday fell on a weekend one year, are a piece of cake in comparison.

Coplin’s listing in the Yellow Pages boasts no waiting, choice of English or Spanish ceremony, and that she can go to the location of your choice or perform the ceremony in her wedding salon. Coplin is one of a handful of ministers in North County certified to issue a confidential marriage license, which allows same-day ceremonies because there is no waiting period for blood tests.

She has married military personnel, foreign tourists, and people as young as 16 and as old as 89.

“You see a lot of human nature in this business,” Coplin said. “It’s a nice business to be in, a happy business to be in.”

The windowless main room of Coplin’s wedding salon accommodates up to 32 guests and is decorated in mauve colors with living greenery--not plastic or silk. There are also a dressing room for the bride and a separate room for picture taking.

Coplin gauges her fee by the number of guests. If a bride and groom take their vows without an audience, the price is $50. With as many as 30 guests, the cost is $100.

Coplin has composed eight short ceremonies from which a couple may choose, or if they prefer, the bride and groom can recite vows of their own making. In her opening remarks, Coplin always talks about commitment.

“Marriage is an important commitment regardless of how you do it,” she said.

GRAY WEDDING GROUP

2091 E. Valley Parkway

Escondido. 480-4482

The Rev. T.G. (Theodore Gilbert) Gray performed his first wedding in July, 1983, out of a travel trailer on his 2.5-acre Valley Center property.

A high school and junior high school teacher for 25 years, Gray became an ordained minister in 1977 and was inspired to become a marrying man after he read an article about Betty Coplin and her ministry in Vista.

Since that first ceremony in the trailer, Gray has helped 1,177 couples say “I do.”

Gray has turned away less than half a dozen couples in the past eight years. He won’t marry anyone intoxicated; he won’t marry anyone in a hot air balloon (fear of heights), and he won’t marry the same woman twice.

“It doesn’t feel right . . . when she’s promised before God to love, honor until death do her part, and a year later she comes back to me with another man,” said Gray, who himself has been married more than once. “It’s just a kind of personal feeling and I’m uncomfortable with it.”

Other than that, just about anything goes. He has married some of his former students, sisters, mothers, pregnant teens and grandparents.

He has married couples on horseback and two 16-year-olds in iridescent spandex biking shorts who showed up at his office on bicycles and left the same way.

“I don’t believe the Lord Jesus would turn anybody down if they said, ‘Lord, we’re in love and we’d like to get married,’ ” Gray said.

Like Coplin, Gray is certified to issue confidential marriage licenses. He does not like the notion of the Las Vegas-style wedding, and appreciates it when couples approach him three to four months in advance of their intended date. Still, Gray said he does enough of the drop-in ceremonies to pay the rent.

“The majority of my customers are people who want a minister, but they aren’t involved in a church,” Gray said. “I try to dignify it a little.”

Gray can travel to any location in San Diego County and charges between $100 and $200. He has at his disposal his Valley Center country chapel and a small wedding room connected to his office in Escondido.

The country chapel (no longer the travel trailer, but now a modest wood-frame building duplicating his grandfather’s church in Arkansas) accommodates 50 to 100 guests. It is simply decorated with silver carpeting and mauve chairs. A 7-foot white cross planted in some rocks can be seen by the bride and groom as they look out the window past the minister.

Cost of Gray’s fee and the chapel-garden is $90 plus $2 per guest.

Because of insurance costs and personal conviction, Gray does not permit alcohol to be served on his property during the ceremony or reception.

In Gray’s Escondido wedding room, 20 white folding chairs face a portable white trellis entwined with red silk roses. A lectern painted white stands beneath the trellis’ arch and has a small shelf for the boom box that amplifies Mendelssohn.

There are no windows in this wedding room and the frog-green carpet with a diamond print greets you at the door. Cost for this parlor and Gray’s fee is $60 plus $2 per guest.

The Gray Wedding Group, which includes Gray’s daughter and son, can also provide the more traditional services of florists, caterers, musicians, photographers and clothing rentals.

With every ceremony, Gray offers a little homespun advice.

“Don’t try to mold that person, accept your spouse for what they are. Don’t argue too much and if you do argue, try to communicate,” Gray said.

Gray said marrying people is a personal reward. He feels he’s performing a vital service.

“After 25 years in the classroom yelling at kids, ‘Spit out your gum,’ ‘Quit talking,’ ‘Did you do your homework?’ all that stuff was so frustrating,” Gray said. “Now, when I stand in front of a couple or an audience, everybody is in a festive mood, everybody’s happy and then I’m happy because I like what I’m doing.”

RIVER VIEW RANCH

1025 Gopher Canyon Road

Vista. 729-7175

This wedding facility is truly a family affair. Delores Jensen is assisted by her husband, Harold, and their nine children and 18 semi-adopted children.

The Jensen’s bought the 2-acre-plus ranch in 1979 to accommodate their large family. But it wasn’t until they hosted a barbecue for 2,000 people and got a request from one of the guests to have her wedding there that they realized the potential.

“We finally said, ‘Look, why don’t we get together and do something with the area we have,’ ” said Delores Jensen. “We’ve really come on gung ho since,” she said.

The open-air chapel, surrounded by 800 rose bushes, is only available for Saturday daytime weddings from April to October, Jensen said. River View can accommodate up to 200 guests.

Fred Parvin, a 70-year-old minister with a quick laugh, officiates at most of the River View ceremonies and is included in the price. However, a bride and groom may supply their own minister.

River View can be rented by the day (from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) for about $1,400. This includes flowers, the open-air chapel which can hold a wedding party with as many as eight attendants, candles in the chapel, tables and clothes, bouquets on every table, all decorations including 60 hanging plant baskets and carousel horses, ice machine, steam tables, dance floor and bandstand, set up and clean up. Food, music and personal flowers are just about the only things not provided, Jensen said.

The Jensens’ living room and bathroom are opened to the bride and her attendants for dressing, but the groom and his groomsmen must fend for themselves.

River View’s newlyweds cover a wide spectrum, from young people to second-timers whose children give them away. Although most of the weddings are formal affairs, River View has done western weddings with the bride and groom on horseback, and Hawaiian weddings with hula dancers.

“It’s wonderful and we’ve met a lot of great people,” Delores Jensen said. “I love weddings. I cry every time.”

GRAND TRADITION

1602 S. Mission

Fallbrook. 728-6466

Envision a bride in a long white gown, riding up in a horse-drawn carriage. As she makes her way to the gazebo-style chapel situated on the bank of a heart-shaped lake . . .

This is not a page from a storybook romance. This is Grand Tradition, a wedding facility that sprung from the imagination of a home economics teacher at Fallbrook High School.

Eight years ago, Beverly McDougal saw that Fallbrook had no place to host “elegant affairs” and she set out to correct that omission. She and her husband, Earl, bought the 6-acre estate and molded it into the exclusive wedding facility.

Ever since, the McDougals have been averaging about three weddings a weekend. During the week, Grand Tradition serves as a meeting place for the Rotary Club and other community groups.

If horse-drawn carriages and outdoor weddings are not her style, the bride can be married inside the Victorian home and make her descent from a sweeping staircase. Indoors or outdoors, as many as 400 guests can be accommodated.

Most of the couples who choose Grand Tradition book at least eight months to a year in advance and generally have a minimum of 50 guests, said Beverly McDougal.

And her clients want the fairy tale. McDougal said she is seeing a total commitment in couples, something she hasn’t seen in quite a few years.

“I think that the younger generation is getting a little more mature about these types of decisions. They are waiting until their careers are started and their commitments are much more mature decisions,” McDougal said.

Over the years, McDougal has built a portfolio of wedding services and a bride can choose from an extensive list of ministers and musicians. However, McDougal has an ironclad rule that Grand Tradition is in charge of catering, cake and flowers.

“We’ve found over the years we have to be in control, therefore we make sure we are responsible for the cake, flowers, food, those services,” McDougal said. “That way everything is coordinated color and decor wise, everything is in total ambiance.”

Price for a wedding at Grand Tradition can range anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000 and up, said McDougal.

THE AMBIANCE

345 First

Encinitas. 632-1751

Still in the process of opening, Ambiance has been designed to make getting married as stress free as possible. It provides everything, from minister to music, from caterer to cake.

Overlooking the waters of Moonlight State Beach, the Ambiance held its first wedding New Year’s Eve, but it will not officially open until early April when construction of the upstairs rotunda is complete.

Nevertheless, at a recent bridal bazaar in North County, 90 prospective newlyweds scheduled their weddings at the facility, said co-owner Steve Seyler. There are still a few openings scattered throughout the rest of the year, he said.

A wedding photographer for 18 years, Seyler said he got a real feel for what goes wrong and right at weddings simply because he’s been to so many of them from start to finish.

His dream for the past 10 years has been to bring together professionals from the catering, floral and music business and offer these services from a central location.

The wedding room, which has the capacity to seat 200 guests, has a parquet dance floor and a raised stage where the ceremony takes place. There is room on this raised area for a bridal party of six.

After the ceremony, everyone can troop upstairs through an inner staircase to the round reception area. Floor-to-ceiling windows provide a sweeping view of the ocean and a large outdoor deck offers more room for guests to spread out.

For the bride and her attendants, there is a spacious dressing room with a full-length mirror, floral upholstered couch and ottoman, connecting restroom and telephone. A kitchen for the caterers is tucked out of sight, but the bar area boasts a color-coordinated marble counter in keeping with the rest of the decor.

Except for the dresses of the women in the bridal party, Seyler has developed package deals that cover all the bases.

The basic package, based on 100 guests and a wedding party of six, includes invitations and response cards, photo thank you cards, limousine service, tuxedos for the groom and his groomsmen, minister if needed, photo package of up to 80 pictures, video of the ceremony, catering, florist package--bouquets for bride and her two attendants, boutonieres for groom and his groomsmen and fathers, corsages for the mothers, two altar baskets and a throw-away bouquet, disc jockey for four hours, caterer and wedding cake. The cost is approximately $6,735 plus tax, but Seyler says he is knocking $1,000 off that price in an introductory offer.

“I like the challenge of doing weddings,” Seyler said, adding that most photographers would rather undergo oral surgery. “Fifty percent of your job is psychological, trying to work with the bride and groom who are in a state of mind they’ve never been in before,” he said.

“I want to get them to where they can enjoy their day. That’s the No. 1 one reason I wanted to build this.”

ANYTIME MARRIAGE

SERVICES

310 Del Rey Ave.

Carlsbad. 479-8070

This ministerial service has three licensed Christian marrying ministers available almost anytime, anywhere as long as an appointment and a deposit are made first.

They do not provide walk-in service, but can do a wedding the same day it is requested and are capable of issuing confidential marriage licenses.

Although they predominantly travel to the location of a couple’s choice, they do utilize the Carlsbad home of one of their ministers and they do have a church at their disposal in the South Bay, said owner and minister Sherry L. Smith.

In a slow month, Anytime ministers officiate at about 50 weddings, while in a busy month they take part in about 150, Smith said. Last Valentine’s Day, they performed 30 weddings, she said.

The cost for a minister to travel to any location in San Diego County is $95 plus gratuity, Smith said. The church in South Bay, which seats about 80 people, ranges from $75 to $150, and the cost of a service at the home of the Carlsbad minister, which seats up to 10 guests, is $50.

Military and second-timers make up a large part of her business, Smith said.

“Love is ageless, sizeless, colorless,” Smith said, whose brides and grooms have ranged from 15 to 90 years old.

All the services have a religious, nondenominational premise, and “kinky” requests are politely declined, Smith said. She’s done weddings in the county jail, but she won’t marry you naked in a hot tub.