She got the call late Tuesday afternoon, two days ago: The young couple had just gotten their wedding license and couldn’t wait another minute.

Could she marry them, like, now?

Carmella Rose Murphy told them “Be here by 7, I’ll do it.” She half-thought they wouldn’t make it, given the hour, but they did, even getting lost once on the way down the back roads to her Sabattus home.

After the beaming pair turned in the driveway, there was another hitch Murphy hadn’t anticipated.

The groom-to-be was a paraplegic.

“I don’t have a way in the house for the poor guy.

“He said, ‘Can we do it in the car?’

I said, ‘It’s up to you.'”

They asked, is that legal?

Sure, she said. She hopped in.

“They were in the front seat, I was in the middle of the back seat, they were looking at me,” Murphy said. “They were happy as all.”

The couple – he was 25, she was 20 – couldn’t afford traditional rings, so they exchanged little plastic ones.

And Murphy did it all, the whole ceremony, right in the car?

“Right in the car, honey.”

On Wednesday Murphy mailed off the wedding license to make it official.



– Kathryn Skelton