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- [S106] The Mountain Press, 20 May 2017.
"I do" on the 50 yard line
By JULI WATSON NEIL
SEYMOUR -- Teenagers played an instrumental role in planning Connie Sullivan's wedding which, to her surprise, ended up including about 750 guests, dozens of singers and musicians, a color guard, a drone - and the unexpected presence of at least one local news station. She sums up what some might consider controlled chaos in one word: blessed.
The veteran teacher retires from Seymour High School on June 5 after 40 years there, and she'll do so a newly married woman. She and fellow Seymour High School teacher Charlie Householder held their nuptials on the school's football field on May 13, and both said they could not imagine beginning wedded life any other way.
"It's a love story 13 years in the making," Sullivan said. "We've lived a very rich and full life as a couple. This was just the icing on the cake."
Householder, a professional in the healthcare industry before becoming a chemistry teacher, joined the Seymour High School staff 13 years ago.
"During lunch, a group of us would meet," he said of fellow teachers. "I found myself drawn to her smile and her laugh. I got up the courage to ask her out." The Sevier County native and 1970 SHS graduate has deep roots in Seymour - the school's football field is named in honor of his father, Benton Householder.
When it came time to plan their wedding 13 years later, the couple faced a challenge that's not uncommon. Householder said, "How do you make a decision who to invite and who to leave out?" That's where their students and coworkers enter the scene.
Sullivan, who teaches human services classes (formerly known as family and consumer sciences or as home economics), said students encouraged her to let them take on multiple aspects of planning the wedding.
"It would take forever to list all the people," said Sullivan. "They took so much time. Tammy Williams, our librarian, decorated for the rehearsal dinner. Mr. Blaydes married us and made sure his kids videoed us and had a drone fly over. I didn't have to worry about any aspect of that."
She was grateful for help with the details, saying that preparing for a wedding still makes for a busy and stressful time. Blaydes serves as the school's technology teacher - and performs marriage ceremonies, at least in the case of coworkers.
More than 200 students were involved in the ceremony, Householder estimated. They included students from the technical department who videotaped the event, as well as members of the choir. "Jean Burkhart and Andrea Markowitz wrote special arrangements for group songs," Sullivan said. "What we chose (as wedding music) was not group. It was solo music." Burkhart is the school's choir director and Markowitz, a former student member, now serves as choir assistant.
As for the media presence at her wedding, Sullivan still isn't clear on how that happened.
"No one has admitted it," she said. "I did not know that they were there. Charlie said, 'Did you see Channel 10 News?' I thought he was teasing. He said, 'No, did you not see that big camera?' When we had the dance in the gym, he said, 'The camera's over there again.'"
With plans to "honeymoon in place," as Householder described it, the couple have about two more weeks before the school year ends. "Our hearts are full," he said. "We're so blessed. It's a fairy tale come true. The students were outstanding. I can't imagine anything going better or more perfectly."
"We're just so blessed," Sullivan said of school and community members who helped pull off the wedding. "Our relationship is magical to us, but to think it's important to others ... If you try to explain it, it seems so inadequate."
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