A couple preparing for their wedding this Saturday in Sioux City had a few anxious moments after learning that President Obama added a campaign visit to Morningside College at the same time. The wedding is scheduled at 4 p.m. to be followed by a regular Saturday service at the Grace United Methodist Church.
The church shares a parking lot with the college. Pastor Tim Bonney has met with the Secret Service and says they have a plan in place to accommodate the wedding and worshipers.
“The Secret Service wanted to make sure that nothing interfered with our worship service or the wedding, and so there’s going to be people there to director those who will be attending the wedding up into our parking lot. So we’ve got as much of our parking lot as we need,” Bonney says.
The pastor says the bride and groom were a little nervous when they read about the timing of the president’s visit. “They were concerned at first, just wondering how it would affect parking as you could imagine, a lot of people will want to come see the president, and they were concerned since we share our lot with Morningside that there could be issues,” Bonney says.
“But it didn’t take us too long to find out that we were able to square that away pretty quickly.” Bonney says there should not be a problem if everything goes as planned.
“Our parking lot will be free for the wedding, and also for our service, the police and others are going to be there to direct traffic,” Bonney says. The wedding reception is being held away from the church. President Obama will visit Sioux City for the first time since becoming president.
Obama will stop in Des Moines before heading to Sioux City Saturday evening. It will be the president’s seventh trip to Iowa this year.
By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City