From my mom, from yesterday’s Democrat & Chronicle. If all goes according to plan, our wedding will be on this date. Look for more official information coming soon.

Next year’s 07-07-07 sets off frenzy to wed
Lauri Githens Hatch Staff writer

(October 4, 2006) — Even though it’s nine months away, plan now to stay off the roads next year on the first Saturday of July. Unless you want to be bumper-to-bumper with limos, that is.

Why? Because the date will be 07-07-07.

That has the wedding industry spinning like a Vegas slot machine as scores of engaged couples scramble to wed on that triple-lucky day.

In some cases, bookings are preceding engagements: The Strathallan on East Avenue had its evening reception reserved in April by a young woman who didn’t yet have a ring — or, technically, a proposal — from her boyfriend, then a soldier in Iraq.

“July 7 is their first-date anniversary, so she booked it for that,” explains Marie Wendover, the Strathallan’s weddings co-coordinator. “Now he’s home, he knows it’s their wedding reception site, and yes, he does know there’s a step yet to be taken.”

This didn’t strike her as odd, she says; she has a cousin in Buffalo so determined to have an 07-07-07 wedding she booked her reception hall two years ago.

Other spots seeing a July 7 rush:

# The Burgundy Basin Inn in Perinton: Four of its eight receptions were booked by late January, according to co-owner Michael Clark. A fifth slot was reserved by Rochesterians Mike Abele and Katie Eileen McKee on 07-07-06, the day they got engaged.

“Seven’s my favorite number. I was born on Jan. 7, and when we saw that a year from when we got engaged was Saturday 7-7-07, we thought it was really cool,” says Abele.

As of Monday, only three spots remained — as long as they were afternoon parties from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

# Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford: The rolling lawns here will host just one reception that day, and it’s Michelle Rauber’s. The Rochester substitute teacher nabbed the spot in January, shortly after she became engaged to Philip Wehrheim of Pittsford.

“My mom was saying ‘When? What about July? Wait, I know, what about 7-7-07?’” Rauber recalls. “I said, ‘Mom, that’s probably not even a Saturday.’ She looks. ‘It’s a Saturday!’ I’m like, OK, that’s it, we’re booking.”

# The Crescent Beach Hotel in Greece: Banquet co-coordinator John Cole comes to the phone and says without preamble, “Is this about 7-7-07? Because it’s just the most popular date in the world right now.”

Cole began taking inquiry calls last fall and had the first “Lucky 7s” wedding booked by late December. Now only small daytime parties ending at 4 p.m. are available.

“Mostly it’s because it’s going to be easier for (the groom) to remember for anniversaries. And it’s usually the bride who says it. He just sits there and takes it all in,” says Cole.

Wedding vendors are also getting the rush.

“07-07 is crazy,” says Richard Cranston, a DJ and owner of Ecstasy Sound. “Four of my five (bookings) that day are already gone.”

Joetta Keber of Go Sound echoes that. “Every couple who’s called early has called for that date,” she says. “I had seven of my 12 slots gone by the summer.”

The mere mention of the date draws a hoot from seamstress Jill Bates. “Ohmigosh, that’s going to be insane,” says Bates, who works chiefly out of One Enchanted Evening, a dress shop in Fairport.

“We got our photographer a few weeks ago, now he’s all booked. And a friend of mine who’s a DJ is all booked,” says Paul Shank, whose reception will be at the Burgundy Basin Inn. “It’s the Lucky 7s, I guess.”

None of the couples said they picked the day expressly for luck, though they certainly don’t mind the coincidence — or the easy-to-recall date.

Especially Shank, of Farmington, who not only shares a Dec. 11 birthday with his fiancée, Lauren Karas of Owego, Tioga County, he proposed to her on that date, too.

“Between having the same birthday and 7-7-7 for a wedding date,” he laughs, “I have no excuse for forgetting anything — her birthday or her wedding. Not that I would.”