May 8, 2009 5 min read

When we left the church on our wedding day, my wife and I arranged for our adoring family, friends and assorted people we had never met before to blow bubbles. We never really considered the old, standard rice toss. Tossing handfuls of rice at newlyweds apparently kills birds and, more importantly, doesn’t look like much fun to be on the receiving end of. Of course, we knew there were also rice alternatives we wanted to avoid. My cousin’s wife, ever conscious of the environment, chose to have bird seed thrown at their wedding. It sounds pretty but it’s been two years and I’m pretty sure she’s still attacked by a stray finch every now and again when she walks the dog. So we went with bubbles. It made for nice pictures, didn’t kill any birds, and gave the air that “just cleaned” feeling that those Orbitz gum commercials are always talking about. But, man, oh man, did we choose wrong. Instead of showers of bubbles, we could’ve showered punches.

After all, that’s what a newly married Pittsburgh-area couple chose to do in April last year.

Perhaps you remember hearing about the brawling newlyweds, you know the ones, whose hallway-to-elevator-to-lobby fight with a pair of guests in a Pittsburgh hotel made national news. Well, their post-marriage melee tale came to a close this week, when Dr. David Wielechowski, 33, a Shaler dentist, and his wife, Christa, 26, agreed to separate plea deals.

The judge gave them a belated his-and-her wedding gift: he gets probation as a first-time offender, she gets house arrest and a fine.

The story that spawned a million “oh, the honeymoon’s over” comments is a classic tale of boy meets girl; boy marries girl; boy and girl argue; boy and girl fight each other; boy and girl fight strangers; and finally, boy and girl get arrested. In fact, it seems to be the literal stuff that Lifetime movies are made of.

According to police, it all got started when the dentist and his new wife, who had been allegedly celebrating and drinking hard, were trying to find their hotel room. The blissful couple began arguing and got into a physical altercation – police say he “karate-style” kicked his wife, while the couple says he jokingly kicked her and she tripped.

That led to a pair of guests from another wedding attempting to intercede on the bride’s behalf. While they tried to restrain the groom, the bride turned on her would-be rescuers and the four brawled through the hotel hallway, into an elevator and out into the hotel’s lobby. It’s the kind of fight that even professional wrestling would reject as too implausible. Or at least add a couple of steel chairs to.

But it gets better. Down in the lobby is where the new Mr. and Mrs. truly showed their colors as “what to throw at a wedding” innovators: the couple allegedly picked up metal planters and drunkenly chucked them at the would-be rescuers.

Sure makes rice seem like a silly choice, no? Just imagine the potted ferns flying through the air!

The eventful night reportedly ended with the battered newlyweds in separate holding cells in the Allegheny County Jail – her still in her gown and him in a bloody t-shirt, tuxedo pants, one shoe and sporting a black eye -to cool down and sober up.

On the other side of the scorecard, one would-be rescuer had a fractured wrist and broken tooth and the other had a cut on his chin.

Spending your wedding night in separate cells might sound cruel, even if you had just been literally at each other’s throats. But don’t worry, the couple had officially been married in the Bahamas a month prior, but repeated their vows during a reception at the hotel where they fought. (Perhaps the vow to “love and cherish, to build up and beat down” should’ve been a tipoff to the guests?)

Just like in the brawl, the couple presented a unified defense in face of worldwide media attention. They appeared in a joint press conference shortly after the incident to plead they were just kidding around. Now, a year later, the couple is still together and appears none the worse for wear from the incident (other than being a national laughingstock). With divorce rates what they are in the best of circumstances, that’s pretty impressive.

All of which gets me wondering: why am I trying to be the best husband I can be to my wife when I could’ve been trying to start fights with strangers? I think the Wielechowskis could pen a pretty successful marriage book (may I suggest the title, “The Couple That Brawls Together, Stays Together”?). If people listen to Dr. Phil’s advice, surely somebody would listen to the brawling bride and grappling groom.

Still, I’m sure after this week’s plea deal the Wielechowskis are looking to put this whole thing behind them; at least until their 5- or 10-year anniversary rolls around and they decide to go all “Roadhouse” on some folks for old time sake. Hey, whatever you gotta do to keep the magic going, I’m not going to judge.

I just wish I’d heard about this potted plant idea before I committed to stinkin’ bubbles.

Brandon Szuminsky can be reached by e-mail at brandon.szuminsky@gmail.com.