They dressed as murderers and Addams Family characters.
But they were also brides and grooms.
A handful of Halloween-loving couples chose to marry at the County Administration Center on the spooky holiday Wednesday, but with a twist. They came in costume.
Among them were San Diego couple Leah Juarez and Daryl Hurwitz, who dressed as killers for their Big Day. Juarez said she and her fiancé Hurwitz, a Marine, knew almost immediately they wanted to marry on Halloween when they got engaged about three months ago.
“My favorite holiday is Halloween and hers is too,” said Hurwitz, preparing for the ceremony. He was dressed in a white button down shirt smeared with bright red, fake blood, a red tie and formal dark-colored pants.
Juarez’s elegant, white wedding dress seemed to match because it was streaked with the same fake blood. The couple said they decorated their outfits last night.
A passion for Halloween also drove Joseph Vega and Deanna Martinez Vega to don costumes for their wedding ceremony Wednesday.
The San Diego couple said they had a bigger celebration with family and friends in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico a few weeks ago and needed to make their marriage official in this country.
The holiday “just kinda came up, so why not do (it on) Halloween?” Joseph Vega said.
They chose to dress as Morticia and Gomez, a married couple who were characters in The Addams Family, the popular TV show from the 1960s that was also made into movies in the 1990s. Their look was convincing, with Joseph Vega wearing a dark pinstripe suit, a penned-on mustache and some eye make-up, while his bride wore a long black wig, face-paint and a lush, black velvet dress and corset.
“We weren’t even sure if we could legally” dress up in costume to marry at the County Administration Center, said Deanna Martinez Vega. They figured they could. And they were right.
So not only did they dress in costume, but so did many of their 17 guests. There was a witch, a judge and characters from the Tim Burton movie, “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Guest Regina Knoll dressed as a “tacky tourist” in a huge straw hat and Hawaiian shirt, while her boyfriend Jesse Menczer, also a guest, went as a vampire.
When Menczer walked through the metal detectors to get into the building, Knoll said a security guard remarked that he didn’t see vampires very often.
“He said he never had to inspect a cape before,” she said.
