As they repeated the words “for better and for worse,” Dr. Coy Foster and his fiancé Caroline Street have already experienced plenty of both. They have seen the heights and the depths together. But this event was definitely the culminating height as they were wed on Friday, June 28, 1996 at the Annual Mississippi International Balloon Classic in Greenwood, Mississippi. In keeping with their passion for ballooning as well as each other, the ceremony preceded the Hare and Hound Event Friday afternoon at the Classic. Immediately after the ceremony, performed by Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Dan Lee, the happy couple ascended in their balloon, The Phoenix.
Foster had long thought that when he wed, the event would have a ballooning theme, but it wasn’t until “I proposed to her by cellular telephone last year when we were in Morocco preparing for the around the world flight by Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson and she accepted” that the plans began to take shape. The couple chose the location Foster said, “because we like the people here. They have been extremely kind to us over the years.” So kind, in fact, that Greenwood Mayor Harry Smith gave the bride away moments after Governor Kirk Fordice, in a separate brief ceremony, proclaimed the two “Ambassadors of Goodwill for Mississippi.” Foster and his fiancé have attended the Classic every year, even the year after Foster had his 1992 ballooning accident in which 80 percent of his body was burned. Foster’s incredible comeback has been a long time coming and he credits Ms. Street for staying by his side when things were at their “worst.”
Foster, now completely recovered and resuming his medical practice, kidded and pretended to bolt, as the bride entered the field riding in the back of a red convertible surrounded by eight bridesmaids. Ms. Street wore white shorts topped with a white cotton-knit shirt with a sweetheart neckline and long tapered sleeves accentuated with lace medallions and embellished with simulated pearls and sequins. The brides headpiece, an original creation sported a narrow brim, adorned with simulated pearls and crystals and featuring Venetian lace trim with a nylon pouf. She carried a silk cascade of white magnolias and dogwood blossoms contrasted with English ivy, red poppies, yellow daisies and bluebonnets and accented with pearls and satin ribbon of red, yellow, and blue. The costume was completed with wedding tennis shoes decorated with lace and pearls, made especially for the bride by one of her bridesmaids. The groom was “formally” attired in white T-shirt, black pants accented with a Mickey Mouse bow-tie and cummerbund. The bridesmaids and groomsmen, all crew members of The Phoenix, were dressed in black shorts and white T- shirts embossed with a computer image of the couple. The bridesmaids all sported original self-designed hats decorated with magnolias, wild flowers and red, yellow and blue ribbons, the colors of the couple’s hot air balloon.
Per Lindstrand. long time friend of the couple, and the balloon’s manufacturer, who had flown in from England especially for the nuptials piloted the pair into the sky after the ceremony.