TERREBONNE PARISH, La. — When a Houma couple’s wedding plans fell through, they walked out of the courthouse, prepared to find a new officiant. They didn’t expect one to pop out from under a Christmas tree.
Krystal Champagne and her fiance, Coast Guard member Randy Galliano, got engaged in January. Their courthouse wedding was scheduled for Monday.
“He was supposed to be shipped out to Virginia for his A-School training on Dec. 1, and this was pretty much the only time he could get off,” said Champagne. They found out before they left for the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse that Judge Juan Pickett, who was supposed to marry them, had suffered a medical emergency.
The court told them a backup may be available, but when they got there, the other judge was in the middle of jury selection. “We were told we could wait till jury duty was over, but we were on a time crunch,” said Champagne.
They walked out the front door of the courthouse, where a city crew was assembling a large Christmas tree. “They told us ‘congratulations’ and we told them, ‘not yet, we’re not married yet, we’re going find someone.’”
Unbeknownst to them, Jim Wendell, Terrebonne Parish Director of Quality of Life, was working under the tree. He said he heard Champagne and Galliano talk about their predicament, “So I stuck my head through the branches of the tree and asked them if they needed someone to officiate.”
Champagne’s first reaction was skepticism. “I was like, ‘Is it legal? Can he actually marry us?’”
He could. Wendell has been an ordained minister for “12, 15 years” now, thanks to his part-time work at the Sheriff’s Office. “There were some instances when we married people who were in jail when their release date got changed and they had plans,” he said.
Wendell offered to marry the couple, and they went to the gazebo in front of the courthouse. “Said our ‘I do’s,’ took less than a minute,” said Champagne. They then went across the street to Wendell’s office to sign the papers, took some photos, and left to celebrate. Wendell went back to hanging Christmas decorations.
Champagne said Galliano will be back from his training stint in three months. WWL Louisiana reached out to Judge Pickett as well, and he said he is recovering well and is already back at work.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.