The Wedding: A Love Story at the Historic Malco Theatre
- Blissful Hot Springs
- Feb 26
- 8 min read
Hot Springs, Arkansas • February 26, 2011
Some weddings are lovely. Some are memorable. And then some are the kind that guests are still talking about more than a decade later saying, “I’ve never been to a wedding like yours.” This is one of those.
Glenn and I got married on February 26, 2011 at the Historic Malco Theatre on Central Avenue in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was theatrical, whimsical, deeply personal, and pulled together in six weeks flat. It was also the night that both of us realized, without saying it out loud, that planning celebrations together was something we were meant to do.
This is that story. And yes, we showed The Three Stooges at our wedding. We regret nothing.
Engaged at Midnight, Married in Six Weeks
Glenn proposed on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day as the clock struck midnight. It was the kind of proposal that sets the tone for everything that follows: personal, a little dramatic in the best way, and perfectly timed.
We had talked about a wedding business in some form ever since our relationship began. We loved celebrations. We loved the details. We loved helping people bring their visions to life on a budget. I’d been doing it for family and friends for years, and had a graphic design degree to back up what I’d already been doing. Glenn had been the steady and thoughtful one at my side through all of it.
So when it came time to plan our own wedding we did what we always do. We dreamed big, stayed creative, and figured out how to make it happen beautifully without breaking the bank. Six weeks later, on February 26th at 7 PM, the show went on.
The Venue: A Living Piece of Arkansas History
The Historic Malco Theatre has been a landmark on Central Avenue since 1946. It was built from the surviving bones of the Princess Theatre, a vaudeville house that burned to the ground on Christmas Eve in 1935. The Malco rose from those ashes into a stunning Art Deco showplace, complete with the glowing neon marquee that still lights up downtown Hot Springs today.
I’ve always loved that we got engaged on Christmas Eve and chose to marry in a building literally born from a Christmas Eve fire. That’s the kind of poetry you can’t plan.
At the time of our wedding the Malco was home to the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the oldest all-documentary film festival in North America. They were wonderful hosts and excited to hold a wedding at the theatre.
Setting the Stage: The Decor and Details
Our theme leaned fully into the heyday of the Malco and the golden age of Hollywood. Our colors were red and chocolate, chosen specifically to work with the theatre’s existing mix of solid red carpet mixed with areas of red and gold patterned carpet, red upholstered seats, and red carpet walls that rose about four feet up. We weren’t going to try to fight that red. We were going to embrace it.
My mom and I made most of the decor ourselves. We fashioned silk flowers bought on sale into boutonnieres, flower arrangements, tulle bows pinned to theatre seats, and my maid of honor’s bouquet with its elegant fan backing. Mom made my bouquet herself.
None of it would have come together without the people who loved us. Friends offered their talents as wedding gifts: piano, guitar, vocals, and readings. My mother, grandmother, and I made the punch together one weekend and froze it until the wedding day. Our guestbook was a stunning handmade piece by our dear friend Heather: red velvet cover, chocolate satin bow, jewels and gold embroidered trim. It opened my eyes to what a handmade guestbook could be, and I've treasured it ever since. Every detail was touched by someone who cared about us, and that, more than any single creative choice, is what made the day feel the way it did. It's something I carry into every event I plan: your connections are everything.
The marquee outside read: A Joyous Union Production Presents: “The Wedding” with our names. We had custom posters designed for the marquee boxes, styled like a cross between a vintage film poster and a theatrical playbill, featuring an almost black and white photo of us at the stone arch fountain at the Hot Springs Reservation's grand entrance. Opening Saturday, February 26th, 7 PM. I designed the programs to match, formatted like actual Playbills. Invitations were sent with “tickets” tucked inside, which were not required for entry but were absolutely required for the aesthetic.
On stage, we had a white arch topped with red ostrich feathers and flanked by tall candelabras and large floral arrangements. The exposed brick backdrop behind the stage made the whole thing look like a 1940s supper club. The two-screen entrance signs inside were updated to read: Screen 2: WELCOME TO and Screen 1: THE WEDDING. Because of course they were.
The Look: 1940s All the Way
I wore a knee-length white ruched dress with a bolero shrug with a standing collar, a birdcage veil, nude stockings with a black seam up the back, and red heels. Glenn wore a black-on-black pinstripe zoot suit, red tie, matching fedora and white spats over mirror polished oxfords. Our wedding party kept it beautifully coordinated: the best man in a black suit, red tie, white spats, and a fedora. Our maid of honor wore a red 1940s-style knee-length cocktail dress and carried a bouquet with a fan backing. I made matching red fascinators for the bridal party and red hatbands and spats for the groom and groomsman from an heirloom, period appropriate pattern.
Our flower girl wore a red dress I found on a clearance rack in the post-Christmas sales. The ring bearer’s dress pants, white shirt, black vest, and red tie were also clearance finds. And they were perfect.
We asked guests to dress up in their best pin-up attire or to use the occasion as an excuse to finally wear that fancy suit or that cocktail dress they’d only worn once. We were heavily involved with a local pin-up society at the time, so we had guests arriving with feather boas and victory rolls, mixed in with business casual and beautiful cocktail dresses. And then there was our friend Lisa who showed up dressed as a newsboy, complete with a customized copy of the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, a nod to the fact that I was working there as a graphic designer at the time. Still one of my favorite moments of the night.
The Ceremony: A Grand Reveal
Because the Malco doesn’t have a traditional center aisle, we had everyone seat themselves across the theatre with no assigned sides. We let guests know we’d be walking down the left side of the theatre, across the front, and that the ceremony would be centered on the stage.
First, Glenn and our pastor appeared through what looked like a solid black wall, but it was actually a curtain concealing a door used by magician Maxwell Blade, who shared the theatre at the time. They stood at the end of the aisle we had created so they could watch us walk down. One by one, the wedding party made their way down the left side of the theatre and across the front, then disappeared through that same gap in the curtains. The flower girl and ring bearer first, then the best man and maid of honor, and finally my mom and I. The pastor announced that everyone could be seated and welcomed them to the wedding. Then he and Glenn slipped back through the curtain too.
What the audience didn’t know was that I had spent weeks creating a silent film-style slideshow telling the story of how we fell in love. Black and white, aged to look like real old film, with sepia-toned photos and intertitle cards between each image explaining what they were looking at. The tiny origami crane Glenn had folded from our chopstick wrapper on our first date, smaller than a quarter. Our road trip out west to Carlsbad Caverns and Roswell. Trips to the Memphis Zoo. Time with friends and family. All set to ragtime piano music and running about three minutes long.
What the audience also didn’t know was that behind the curtain my mother had just realized the bridal party and groomsmen were standing on the wrong sides. What followed was a very hurried, extremely silent, completely panicked shuffle to get everyone repositioned while the ragtime piano covered for us. No one in the audience had any idea.
When the film ended, the retractable screen rolled up and away, and there we were. Candles lit, flowers in place, everyone on the correct side, looking completely composed. The full wedding party revealed on a proper theatrical stage, with a full house watching.
The Reception: The Three Stooges, Popcorn, and No Regrets
After the ceremony, before we walked back down the aisle to leave, our pastor asked everyone to stay seated in the theatre unless they had been told otherwise. The screen came back down after the bridal party exited, and the theatre played The Three Stooges short called “Brideless Groom,” in which Shemp has to get married to claim his inheritance. We chose it deliberately: it was short, wedding-themed, genuinely funny, and completely appropriate for everyone in the room, from the smallest children to the eldest guests.
While Shemp was finding himself a bride on screen, we were in the grand lobby taking family photos on the beautiful staircase that leads to the Malco’s second floor. And in between taking photos with us, our family transformed the lobby into a full reception. Buffet set up, cake table arranged, punch ready, chairs placed. By the time the film ended, and guests poured out of the theatre, the party was already waiting for them.
The cake table held a tiered chocolate cake with red rose decorations and a matching spread of cupcakes, all in red and chocolate of course. We had the theatre staff running their popcorn machine for the whole reception, because what is a wedding at a movie theatre without movie popcorn? And because the lobby had limited seating, we kept public domain silent films playing on the screen throughout the evening, so guests always had somewhere to drift, sit, and chat.
Under the Neon Lights of Central Avenue
At some point that night we slipped outside for photos in front of the marquee. Standing on Central Avenue in our wedding attire, the neon Malco sign glowing above us with our names on it, the historic streetlights of the Spa City all around us. It felt like we’d stepped into a different era entirely.
What This Night Taught Us
We still hear it all the time. “I’ve never been to a wedding like yours.” “I never thought anyone would show the Three Stooges at a wedding, and I’ll never see that again.” And honestly, that’s exactly what we wanted. Not just a wedding, but an experience. Something that felt like us in every detail.
That night confirmed something we’d felt almost from the beginning: that planning celebrations together was something we were meant to do. The problem-solving, the creativity under pressure, the joy of watching people walk into a room and feel genuinely delighted and surprised by what they found there. We loved every bit of it.
That’s why Blissful Hot Springs exists. And every time we help a couple create something that feels deeply, unmistakably theirs, we’re drawing on everything we learned that February night on Central Avenue.
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Want to create something that feels this personal?
Whether you’re dreaming of something theatrical, intimate, whimsical, or completely one of a kind, we would be so honored to help you bring it to life.
With love, Jeni & Glenn • Blissful Hot Springs
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