Bride and groom show up armed for wedding at Florida gun store. She carried an AR-15
An adventurous Florida couple with a soft spot for firearms got married this week at the only place that made perfect sense: a gun store.
It happened Tuesday — 2-22-22 on the calendar — at Mad Dog Armory in Tampa, and photos show a lot of people came armed, including the reverend who performed the wedding.
Bride-to-be Jennifer Hahn wore a pink veil, matching sleeveless gown and carried a bouquet of flowers fixed to the barrel of a Diamondback AR-15 with Holosun optic and magnifier.
The groom, Jason Hahn, dressed comfortably in jeans and a flannel shirt, and carried a 30-year-old custom Springfield 1911 pistol with several upgrades.
“A wedding in a gun store you say? Why not?” Mad Dog Armory wrote on Facebook. “Can you guess where they went afterwards? Yup, the shooting range!”
Jason Hahn told McClatchy News that Mad Dog Armory stepped up after a shooting range turned them down.
The ceremony was staged on the store’s sales floor — by the front windows — and it lasted just 8 minutes. Attendees included her grown children and it was officiated by the Rev. Mark Whiteway, one of Jason’s co-workers.
The two divorcees met six years ago through a dating app and slowly bonded over an interest in target shooting, he said. He symbolically popped the question using a ring he made from a shotgun shell.
The ”Twosday” wedding date was Jennifer’s idea, because she figured it’s an anniversary that’s nearly impossible to forget.
“I really do love firearms. I love the engineering in the designs. I love cleaning them. It can be really meditative. I love the challenge of taming them,” Jason Hahn told McClatchy News.
“That being said, I do not carry a gun. I do not hunt. I do not think of them as a defense. When I see a gun, I wonder how well I can target shoot with it. To me, it is a sport.”
Jennifer Hahn, who is a college student, overcame a fear of guns during their relationship. She now owns 14, he says.
Their unusual choice of a wedding venue has generated media coverage and a lot of “shotgun wedding” references on social media. The old fashioned term refers to a rushed marriage without a choice.
“We never expected to garner any attention from this (wedding),” he says. “Honestly, it was a decision made on a whim.”
The couple plan to go on their honeymoon in March, somewhere in the North Carolina mountains, he said.
This story was originally published February 26, 2022 at 9:14 AM with the headline "Bride and groom show up armed for wedding at Florida gun store. She carried an AR-15."