Love comes full circle at bar/ Couple says wedding vows at 'home away

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Dec 22, 2002 by RACHEL SAUER

It began at the bar. He sat on one side, and she sat on the other.

First, they noticed each other.

"Mmmmm, cute," he thought.

Then she left her stool on the far side of the U-shaped wooden bar, walked around and sat next to him.

And they talked all night.

Soon, their evenings at 1st Draft Choice, 1110 E. Fillmore St., were spent sitting closer and closer. He'd squeeze her knee, she'd sit on his lap. All the bar regulars - their friends, their extended family - watched and smiled.

Then they were engaged and knew they would get married where they met and fell in love.

Selma Gonzalez and Mike Cain were married Saturday afternoon at 1st Draft Choice, a Colorado Springs bar that has been Mike's second home for more than 15 years.

In the neon glow of Budweiser and Miller Genuine Draft signs, at a temporary altar on the dance floor in front of the stage, Gonzalez and Cain wept as they were pronounced man and wife.

After the hugs and handshakes and a few more kisses, Cain yelled, "Let's drink beer!"

So they did.

People lit cigarettes and watched the Dolphins play the Vikings on a big-screen TV. They ate and boogied to classic rock.

Gonzalez and Cain wandered through the room filled with friends and family, the people they met at 1st Draft Choice who made their wedding day comfortable and unique.

Kim Walden, who owns the bar with her husband, Doug, oversaw the food and decorations.

Tonya Hanlon made the silk flower bouquets and boutonnieres.

Libby Spears made the cake.

Renee Anderson took the photos and loaned Gonzalez a leaf-green dress.

Karen Tenney arranged food trays.

Kevin McKittrick got Cain to his wedding on time and Ron Music walked Gonzalez to the altar.

"At first I was hesitant when they said they wanted to get married here, because it's a bar," Walden said. "But it just makes sense, it's their home away from home. So we wanted to make it as nice for them as we could because they're such great people. And it really is like a family here."

Gonzalez and Cain, both 39, met in July.

Cain has hung out at the bar several times a week for years.

From behind the bar, Walden said she watched various women try to draw him out of his shyness, but none could.

McKittrick and his girlfriend set Cain up on blind dates, but nothing clicked.

"I never thought he'd get married," said Kermit Enclarde, Cain's best friend and best man at the wedding. "He was single for so long. But this shows there's that right someone for everyone."

Cain, who works for a company that makes decorative pins, and Gonzalez, a prep cook, got engaged in September. It is Cain's first marriage and Gonzalez's second. She has a son from her first marriage.

They moved into an apartment two blocks from 1st Draft Choice and planned a December wedding to honor Gonzalez's father, who died Dec. 19, 1999.

By Saturday morning, after a month of planning and rowdy bachelor and bachelorette parties Friday night, they were ready and nervous.

Cain got a haircut and trimmed his beard. He was sent on errands and - after coming to the bar for a beer - he was sent home to put on his suit.

Gonzalez got ready in the bathroom in the bar's kitchen, curling her bangs and setting her long, dark hair in hot rollers.

Beverly Leonard took Gonzalez's picture and she squealed, finishing her makeup with the door closed.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Walden stopped scurrying around the small kitchen, Tenney stopped arranging crackers in a basket, and Anderson stopped taking pictures. They stared.

"You are so beautiful, you know that?" Tenney told Selma. "You really are."

Cain propped himself against the cigarette machine by the bar, wearing a gray, Western-cut suit and a goofy expression.

Ten minutes before the ceremony, he discovered he didn't have the rings and dashed home, only to remember they were in his car.

As the ceremony started, the wedding party lined up in the kitchen doorway and emerged slowly.

Cain's brother-in-law, Steven Sebben, married the couple in a ceremony he wrote.

He cited "Benediction of the Apaches," telling the couple they would feel no more rain for they will be each other's shelter. His voice quavered as he pronounced them man and wife.

They kissed and hugged each other for a long time.

Fifty of their friends and family who came to the wedding clapped and cheered. Then they wandered to the bar.

Which is where it all began.