Gavilan College carpentry students took apart the San Felipe
Community Church board by board in 1972. It took them three years
to transport the pieces from Hollister and rebuild the 112-year-old
chapel in the foothills of the college.
Gilroy – Gavilan College carpentry students took apart the San Felipe Community Church board by board in 1972. It took them three years to transport the pieces from Hollister and rebuild the 112-year-old chapel in the foothills of the college. Angie Papetti and Daniel McCulloch spent less than three weeks planning their wedding – and are the first to be married in the chapel since it was restored this summer.
“We’ve been going crazy just trying to set all this up,” McCulloch said as Papetti sat on her parents’ living room floor Wednesday, tying red ribbons to silver bells that guests of the wedding would ring Friday night.
Etta James’ classic song “At Last” could be heard faintly playing in the background.
“Everyone thinks you’re crazy,” Papetti, 23, said of their three-week engagement period. Gifts for the wedding party and the couples’ parents lay scattered on the carpet. Bags of empty picture frames are gathered at Papetti’s feet, awaiting photographs of memories that have yet to occur.
The reason behind the rushed ceremony is 24-year-old McCulloch’s departure to Iraq at the end of the month with the Marines. After receiving orders, he decided to propose to his girlfriend of three years.
“So if anything happens – she’s taken care of,” McCulloch explained. “I wanted to do it on her birthday Sept. 4, but that wasn’t going to work.”
After the chapel was rebuilt in 1975, it became a popular site for weddings. But without regular repairs, the tiny chapel began to rot from the inside and sat largely ignored in the hills. The doors were locked and the spiders moved in to stand watch in the windows.
But Friday morning, the cobwebs had been swept away, and the chapel glistened with fresh paint. Shannon Kelly Construction was hired to renovate the chapel and completed the work earlier this summer. Repairs cost upwards of $40,000 to refurnish the floor, replace rotted wood and shingles, repaint pews, and mill decorative carvings.
Now the shingles are aligned and the only hint of the chapel’s age is a rock with an inscription of its history by the doors. Voices from the Papetti-McCulloch wedding party could almost be heard lingering from the wedding rehearsal the night before.
“I always said I wanted bagpipes at my wedding,” McCulloch said.
Finding bagpipers or even an organist for the antique organ inside the chapel proved difficult on such short notice. While there were no bagpipes during the service Friday, there was music – a friend played keyboard instead.
Bouquets of red and white roses decorated the altar. Photographs dating back to the 1880s line the walls of the chapel. Snapshots of people in places long gone joined the 40 guests seated in the pews, watching as Papetti and McCulloch said their vows.
“With this ring, I pledge my life and love to you,” they repeated to each other.
Tiny silver bells rang in unison as Mr. and Mrs. Dan McCulloch exited the chapel.
The couple, both Gilroy natives, have been living in San Diego for the past year where McCulloch has been stationed at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
He enlisted with the Marines a few years after he graduated from Gilroy High School.
“Sept. 11 happened and I didn’t know what else to do,” he said.
While both McCulloch and Papetti grew up in Gilroy, they never met until they were living in separate towns. She was attending school at Santa Clara University and he was visiting a friend at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. They spoke over the phone and planned to meet the following day at Starbucks in Gilroy.
“We kind of set up our own blind date,” Papetti said smiling. “He came in and we met … but it wasn’t really set from the start.”
McCulloch was sent abroad and they lost touch. It wasn’t until Papetti contacted his mother to get his e-mail address that things took off. For the first year of their relationship McCulloch was stationed in Japan. They corresponded through e-mails and over the phone, with Papetti sending care packages of cookies and other goodies to remind him of home.
“He’d call and it would be the next day at ten in the morning,” she said.
With years of practice, the couple knows how to cope with the distance. Iraq is a 22 hour flight about 7,700 miles from their home in San Diego. When they speak of his departure it is in terms of his return. McCulloch expects to be gone at least six months. He plans on returning to school and is considering becoming a firefighter or a reservist in the Coast Guard Search and Rescue unit.
His mother has already checked next year’s calendar – the couple’s first anniversary will be on a Saturday. A larger party is being planned that will allow his friends in the Marines time to request leave. None were able to attend Friday’s ceremony. Papetti is already thinking about her new husband’s welcome home party – where perhaps there will be bagpipes playing.
