Anchorage Daily News

What would happen if Barbie came to life and got married? Oh, and she lived in Alaska and wanted a unique wedding. And she liked the idea of being a princess.

Her big day would look just like Anchorage residents Mechelle Sharp and Shawn Boquist's wedding April 26 at Chena Hot Springs Resort.

"I'm the girl playing with Barbie all her life," said Mechelle, who still has 300 of them tucked away in a trunk.

"I'm just really grateful that there is an ice castle in Alaska."

Ice castle?

That's right, the wedding was inside the Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs Resort. The temperature stays at a constant 20 degrees year-round. Ice sculptures surrounded the 20 people in the wedding party and the 60 guests.

"I felt bad for all of them," said Shawn via phone from his work assignment on the North Slope. "Weddings never start on time ... but as the time kept going on, then their teeth started to chatter.

"But when Mechelle walked out, all the teeth stopped chattering."

Mechelle's desire for a fairy-tale wedding with an Alaska twist led her to the ice museum.

"People get married on the top of mountains and do other things like that up here," Mechelle said. "But I ... really wanted a castle. Once I found that, I was pretty much dead set."

No bunny boots and fur parkas cluttered her vision.

"I wanted something Alaskan," she said, "but I wanted it to be elegant."

Accordingly, the bridal party was dressed in full formal attire. Mechelle's outfit included open-toed shoes.

"I guess it was all the excitement and adrenaline pumping. I really wasn't cold at all," she said. The ceremony only took 17 minutes, but pictures kept them inside the castle for an hour.

"I felt like an absolute queen. ... Who gets married in a castle really? It was everything I wanted."

And just as in the movies or books, there was a moment when this fairy tale almost got derailed, but that was eight years ago.

Mechelle and Shawn knew each other in high school, graduating from Bartlett in 1993. They reconnected in 2000 at a local watering hole. Mechelle gave Shawn her phone number, and he said he'd call.

When he did, Mechelle gave him what sounded like the ultimate snow job.

"My mom was sick for a long time," Mechelle said. "He called me right in the middle of a chaos. We thought my mother was having a heart attack. So he calls right then; I tell him, 'I can't talk, my mom's having a heart attack.' "

Shawn didn't believe it.

"I thought that was all bull; talk about blowing me off," he said. "I threw her number in the garbage. Then all of a sudden I got a message to call her back, but I didn't have the number."

He had to scramble through a garbage can filled with other people's discarded lunches, but he found the number. "It was all worth it," he said.

Mechelle's mother passed away from complications from diabetes in May 2007. Mechelle had a special flower bouquet at the wedding with the words "In Spirit" to represent her mom.

"I know that my mom was there in spirit," Mechelle said. "She was very much into the castle thing for me."

Mechelle wanted to make sure that the wedding and reception were memorable for everyone. And she wanted to make sure the video -- including the couple's first dance -- was just right. So Mechelle, her father and Shawn all took dance lessons in the weeks before the wedding day.

At first, Shawn wasn't sold on the idea, but it turned out fine, he said.

"I would advise that to anybody," he said. "Without the dance lessons, all I would have done was the rock-and-turn thing like you did in high school. ... But we worked on things, and we ended up nice and fluid."

Added Mechelle: "Now, when anybody sees the video, they'll see that we know how to dance too."

It sounds like a fairy-tale ending.

Reporter Steve Edwards can be reached at sedwards@adn.com.

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