Couple Exchanged Vows in Every State and Married in a City Named Hell Because There's 'Nowhere to Go but Up!'
“We thought it would be funny to say we got married in Hell,” Bucky Delano tells PEOPLE
Courtesy Bucky Delano
Bucky and Sandy Delano held one of their vow renewals at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota in 2023.When Bucky and Sandy Delano first started dating in 2010, Bucky said he loved her more than the highest mountain. Sandy always replied that her love was bigger than the entire country, which inspired the couple to exchange marriage vows in all 50 states!
Their cross-country wedding adventure took eight years to complete, starting in Niagara Falls in 2012 and ending in Alaska in the summer of 2020.
“We took our vacations together, and we’d do four or five states, and then go back home and go back to work,” Bucky tells PEOPLE.
Following their "Vows-Across-the-USA" wedding theme, Bucky wore an American flag shirt at every stop and Sandy wore her white wedding gown with red, white and blue accessories.
Courtesy Bucky Delano
Bucky and Sandy's vow renewal in their last of the 50 states in Denali National Park, AK, in 2023.Related: Wife and Mom of 4 Says Husband's Cheating Saved Their Marriage: 'Affairs Don't Happen in a Vacuum'
When it came time for their legal wedding in 2013, the couple picked a very unique location: Hell, Michigan.
“We thought it would be funny to say we got married in Hell,” jokes Bucky, a 71-year-old retired papermill worker. “A marriage that starts in Hell has nowhere to go but up!”
The couple returned to Hell to renew their wedding vows in Hell’s Chapel of Love on their fifth and tenth anniversary — and their officiant, Ann Jarema, is now a part of their family, Bucky says.
Courtesy Bucky Delano
The Delanos renewed their vows in Honolulu in 2023.The Delanos love showing off their wedding album, which depicts vows under the arch in St. Louis, Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the beach in Hawaii. “People would toot their horn or waive at us,” says Sandy, 76, a retired daycare provider. “It was amazing.”
Since retiring, the couple have moved from their home in Topsham, Maine, and now live full-time in an RV.
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“The weddings made our feelings for each other really close,” Sandy adds. “And living together in a 32-foot camper really brought us close together too!”
After completing their wedding adventure, they embarked on another cross-country trip to visit all 50 state capitals, which they recently finished. Now, they're currently in Arizona planning their next journey.
“We’re not ready to stop traveling,” Bucky says.
Courtesy Bucky Delano
Bucky and Sandy's vow renewal at Rain Forest in Forks, WA, in 2023.As long as they’re together, he says, they’re home — and whenever they encounter a roadblock, whether it's a flat tire or a metaphorical bump on the road, they chalk it up to being a new adventure.
For more on Bucky and Sandy's journey, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now, or subscribe here.
“Instead of complaining about things, we call it an adventure, and it just seems like nothing really stops us — it's just a new adventure that we [weren't] planning on,” Bucky says. “We love what we’re doing, and we just keep going!”
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