16
A Wedding Day
to Remember
Neighbors help Hoover couple celebrate their big day
One thing is true about the coronavirus and
quarantine—there’s never an opportune time
to go through such a traumatic event. But for
some it posed more challenges than others.
Charles Hyde and Keri McClendon Hyde were
people on the guest list. How they decided to
handle that challenge reminds us all that even a
global pandemic can’t stop love.
Keri and Charles, both 31, are both considered
“essential workers” during this time, as she is a
nurse practitioner at UAB’s outpatient Kirklin
Clinic, and he is a manager at Publix and full-time
student. Neither wanted to postpone their plans
even as they realized that their big day would not
be able to go as planned. As the COVID-19 crisis
back on attendees, but when they determined that
Charles’s family would not be able to travel from
out of town, they decided to change course and
get married by a lake in their neighborhood at the
Kirkman preserve in Hoover with Keri’s uncle
performing the ceremony. It was all documented
in real-time on Facebook Live so friends and
family could watch.
What happened that day is inspiring. Little did
the couple know, the Kirkman Preserve HOA
President Wayne Fixler had coordinated with
everyone in the neighborhood to plan a special
surprise. Keri says, “I knew that they had planned
a unity day for the neighborhood, and everyone
had put up white balloons—I thought ‘oh that’s
appropriate because we are getting married that
day.’” But what she didn’t know is that Fixler
had coordinated with residents so they would
know when to come outside and congratulate
the couple as they took a ride around the
neighborhood before traveling to Oak Mountain
people out, and I thought ‘oh that’s sweet,’ but
then I realized everybody was outside,” Keri says.
That’s when they opened the sunroof and the
bride and groom stood up to wave to everyone
who had gathered on their lawns and driveways.
While they were holding the ceremony, neighbors
scrambled to drench their lawns in white
decorations, just for occasion. Some ran up to the
car to deliver champagne –and even a few rolls of
toilet paper.
Keri and Charles, who met years after
graduating the same year from Oak Mountain
High School where they had been acquaintances,
reconnected one evening when Keri was on a bad
online date and spotted her old classmate and
a few others at the table next to her. Two days
later Charles and she went out on a date. (They
the same second grade class.) Though these two
could have never predicted that they’d get married
tell as years pass. “It ended up being a pretty great
day; I think if his parents could’ve been there it
would be a pretty perfect day,” Keri says.