More Spectacle Than Ritual

When some couples wed, they refuse to tie square knots

Easy sex notwithstanding, more Americans than ever are opting for the traditional walk down the aisle. Still, there are many who want to make the Big Day more a spectacle than a ritual. To wit. Bride Annie Bowman who went topless in a Las Vegas showroom called the Jolly Trolley along with a kick line of 25 topless dancers doubling as bridesmaids. A Chicago disco was the setting for a Jewish ceremony with a fog machine filling the room with smoke at the very moment the couple broke the glasses. This week seven couples will tie the knot in front of some 15,000 spectators in the Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. The group ceremony takes place on the pitcher's mound before a Braves game.

Other unusual nuptials: >When Donna Clement, 23, a graphic artist, and Alexander DeVito Jr., 36, a former Navy man, decided to get married, Clement thought it might be appropriate to hold the ceremony on the Staten Island Ferry (where both her fiance and his father work as deck hands). Having received the necessary clearance, the couple were married last week on the bridge deck of the good ship Cornelius G. Kolff shortly after the boat left Staten Island on its 25-minute run to Manhattan. The cost of the love boat was modest indeed: members of the wedding and guests were charged the standard 25-c- ferry fare.

>Dick Bailey, 38, a salesman, and Linda Sue Leasure, 32, a catering manager, decided to tie the knot during the Kinetic Sculpture Race, a Ferndale, Calif., festivity that draws some 10,000 spectators. Bailey's entry: a carousel-shaped contraption covered with pink, blue and white tissue-paper flowers. Powered by four children walking around the platform, the float broke down less than a block from the starting line. Though Bailey, Leasure and the bridesmaids ended up pushing their contrivance along the 200yd. course, they did get to the finish line-- in time for the wedding ceremony.

>At 5 a.m., a mist was still rising from the damp field near Frederick, Colo. Not the most popular hour for a wedding, but certainly the most congenial time for ballooning in the early morning breezes. After solemnly repeating their vows, Diane Baumbach, 39, a secretary, and Jerry Weiman, 33, an amusement park employee, clambered into the bridal balloon, which was decked with a rope of carnations, satin bows and dangling tin cans. Touching down an hour later, the newlyweds celebrated with champagne while onlookers recited the balloon prayer, beginning: "The winds have welcomed you with softness."

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