Great Casting
A musical with an especially happy ending.

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Talk about life imitating art. Kristin Gyllenborg Hurt and Matthew Hurt first met as students at Davidson College, outside of Charlotte, N.C., where they were in a musical together. They played—you guessed it—husband and wife.

"We started dating during rehearsal, and by the end of the show, we were together," says Kristin. "Our director was especially excited to hear that we were getting married."

The couple's story unfolds with the brisk pace of a Rodgers and Hammerstein creation. The proposal came on a surprise trip to New Orleans, Matt's old stomping grounds near his home state of Mississippi. During a seemingly regular weekday lunch out, Matt slid Kristin an envelope, the contents of which revealed that he'd talked to her manager, that she'd gotten the next day off, and that she needed to be home by 3 p.m. to pack because they had a flight to catch that night.

"He did this whole surprise thing for me. If [New Orleans] doesn't get rebuilt, it will be a good story to tell grandkids. I was really glad to be able to see it before [the hurricane]," says Kristin, who had never been to the Big Easy before that. She and Matt stayed in the French Quarter, and the proposal played out after a dinner at Antoine's.

Eager for their next big scene, the couple planned the wedding in a mere six months. They had to dance around a couple of potential obstacles to pull it off. First, Matt, who had enrolled in ROTC during college and served in the Army since graduation, was still in the service last March when they started to map out their big day. However, he knew he would be getting out of the military during the summer, which let them go ahead and plan a September wedding. The second factor they had to take into account was whether all of their friends in the military could be involved. Kristin and Matt knew that the sooner they held the wedding, the bigger the number of friends they'd have available.

"Most of our groomsmen are now back in Iraq," Kristin says. With a little help on wedding coordination and dressmaking (Kristin designed her own dress) from Wedded Bliss Bridal Salon in Prairie Village, the ceremony at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City and the reception in the rooftop bar and ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel on the Country Club Plaza came together perfectly. Kristin says it didn't feel like a whirlwind at all.

"Our running joke was, 'This is easy; we should get married every six months.' We went to the church, and they had the date. We went to the Fairmont, and they had the date. Trapp's was available to do the flowers. Everything just fell into place. It was obviously meant to be."

For such smooth sailing, Kristin advises making decisions and moving on, not second-guessing yourself, and throwing convention to the wind.

"Don't worry about convention or tradition. Put your own flair into it. If you want a blue cake, even if your mom is throwing a fit, get the blue cake. Your wedding should be a reflection of you and your soon-to-be husband."

Photography by Wirken Photography.