A Marriage of Inconvenience

The bride wore white. The groom wore camouflage fatigues. Wedding guests carried M-16 rifles and arrived in armored Humvees. Such were Cupid’s compromises when Spec. Matt Coy, 30, and Lisse Mallory, 28, both of Rancho Cucamonga, revived plans canceled by his call to riot duty and married Wednesday in the rose garden at Exposition Park. The preacher was a chaplain from the 18th Cavalry. The couple departed the ceremony beneath an arch of automatic rifles and the military mood carried to the wedding gifts: a batch of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) from the troop and a 72-hour honeymoon pass.

The newlyweds were divided in their motivation for a military merger. Coy chose reality. “If anything was going to happen to me, I wouldn’t want to leave Lisse hanging in the breeze. Without marriage, she wouldn’t even be entitled to my burial flag.” The new bride was more traditional. “Any wedding is romantic, no matter where you are or what you do.”