Family heirloom is on the road again
When 21-year-old Bryana Loos walks down the aisle today in her shimmering white bridal gown inside a picturesque Lutheran church in Angola, it will be an experience that is – for her, and for her groom, Bill Haas, 22 – entirely new.
“I’m nervous,” said Loos, a Buffalo State College senior who will finish her teaching degree in the spring. “And I’m excited, too.”
But at least one feature of their wedding will be the opposite: antique, weathered and steeped in family tradition.
It’s true: The “Just Married” sign that will grace the back of the wedding car in which Loos and Haas will leave their marriage ceremony in St. John’s Lutheran Church this afternoon is a vintage piece of family history that has been decorating the wedding day vehicles of couples in Loos’ family for 63 years, and counting.
That makes 10 weddings as of today, when Loos and Haas seal the deal. And an 11th wedding in the family is also in the works, so the vintage sign – which is now covered in contact paper, but is otherwise unchanged – is not off-duty yet.
The first wedding
It all started in September 1945, when Loos’ grandmother, Carol Feltz, married George Feltz, an Army private, in a ceremony in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Buffalo.
When the newly married bride and groom exited the church after taking their vows, a surprise was waiting for them: The back of
their wedding car had been decorated with a large rectangular sign bearing a unique — and wryly funny — message, laden with double-entendre.
“Just Married,” the sign reads. “Love, Honor, and Oh Baby!”
“That was considered very risque at the time,” said Carol Feltz, blushing slightly even after 63 years. In 1945, she had just turned 18 when she married 20-year-old George Feltz, who had been stationed in California during World War II. The couple, who live in Angola, celebrated their 63rd anniversary this fall.
The vintage cardboard sign — which was painted on the reverse side of a 1940s-era poster advertising Squirt beverages — was created for the war-era wedding by a friend of Carol’s, Lorraine Pieper, who was an art student at Buffalo State College at the time.
And, after the Feltz’s wedding, it was saved and tucked away for memory’s sake — the same as many other couple’s wedding-day banners.
“I happen to keep things,” said Carol Feltz, laughing. “I’m sentimental. I keep too much.”
‘A happy cry’
But the Feltzes didn’t let their “Just Married” sign sit idle. When their four children began to marry, they brought it out of storage — it had been in a trunk in the basement — and used it on the wedding cars of son Ross and daughters Charmayne and Faith. In 1978, it also bedecked the back of an Oldsmobile Cutlass when their youngest daughter Maxine married Donald Loos, a Lutheran minister, also in St. John’s church in Angola.
Donald Loos has been minister at the white, steepled Lutheran church on Gold Street since 1976. He has married other members of the extended family, and will serve as officiant of the service at which his daughter Bryana marries Haas, a Hamburg native and Hilbert College graduate who now works for Kraft Foods.
After, that is, he gives the bride away — in his dual role as father of the bride.
“It will be more meaningful to me that way,” said Bryana Loos, who met Haas when she was 15 and he 16, and they both tried out for the same play at St. Francis High School in Athol Springs. Haas graduated from St. Francis, Loos from Mount Mercy.
“I am worried that I will cry,” she said, thinking about the ceremony, at which 270 guests are expected. “But if I do, it will be a happy cry — a very happy cry.”
After the weddings of the four Feltz children, the sign was called into service for grandchildren. The Feltz’s have nine grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and one more great-grandchild on the way.
Added pressure
As of today, the cardboard relic has made the bridal trip with happy newlyweds 10 times.
All of that creates a certain pressure, said Ben Loos, one of Bryana’s two brothers, who married Christine DiFonzo last year, and used the sign on a Jaguar for their getaway car.
“We were going 40 mph on the expressway,” joked Christine Loos.
“And it was bending and folding, and we thought, oh no, we don’t want to be THAT COUPLE,” added Ben Loos, shaking his head. “The one that ruins it.”
The Feltzes said they will keep the sign tucked away so it can see as much use as possible, in a family that is ever-growing and adding new members.
“Traditions are important,” said Carol Feltz.
Her daughter Maxine added: “And sometimes, they start unsuspectingly, too.”
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