T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Newlyweds Rean and Alexis Webb, left and second to left, were married at the chapel inside Anderson Funeral Home in Marshalltown on Thursday afternoon after Alexis’s father Tim Schneider, right, and stepmother Sara Wallen, second from right, made an impromptu call to Funeral Director Jody Anderson, center, to perform the ceremony when no judge was present at the courthouse.

Just before Valentine’s Day, Rean and Alexis Webb of Marshalltown were all set to get married in a “low-key” ceremony at the courthouse on Thursday afternoon and embark on a new chapter in their lives together. There was only one problem: there was no judge on hand, and despite prior communication about their intentions, they had to scramble to arrange a backup plan.

Enter Anderson Funeral Homes Owner and ordained minister Jody Anderson, a longtime friend of Alexis’s father Tim Schneider, the owner of Advance Garage Doors. Tim quickly instructed his girlfriend, Sara Wallen, to get a hold of Anderson, and before long, they were laughing with instructions to meet at the funeral home on West Main Street in five to 10 minutes.

“We knew when we saw their faces, like, we can get this figured out. We bid jobs, we get jobs, we finish jobs. We can make this happen. With the help of Jody stepping in, too, that happened to work out. So together we got ‘er done,” Tim said.

The wedding party obliged, and after a few more minutes, he had the chapel prepared for the nuptials, and Tim got to walk his daughter down the aisle while Rean’s son got to stand up next to the groom as his best man. While this was certainly the most impromptu wedding Anderson had ever officiated — and the first one at the funeral home — it wasn’t his first ever as he has four others under his belt.

“When I got here, obviously I’ve got a chapel, so I brought the lectern out front, made a few notes, met with them for probably 10 minutes just to discuss the importance of marriage. And I played here comes the bride (and) Tim got to walk her down,” Anderson said.

The couple has four kids between them, and Wallen credited Anderson for orchestrating them into their various roles as flower girls, ring bearer, and of course, best man. Now, they’re back to work while they save up for a honeymoon trip — Alexis is a Registered Nurse in Marshalltown, and Rean works as an industrial maintenance technician specializing in printing presses at Graphic Packaging International in Newton.

“Somewhere warm with beaches,” Rean said when asked where they hoped to travel.

As Anderson explained, Schneider has always been there for him when he needed work done at one of his funeral homes or his own house, and he was happy to return the favor for a friend.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.