'Santa' unites couple on Christmas Day

CONGRESS PARK, Colo., Dec. 26 (UPI) -- A Colorado couple who met at a Christmas party and got engaged while visiting Santa at a mall were married Christmas Day by a minister dressed as Santa Claus.

Dave Hauck Jr. and Cathy Spencer were both dressed in red for the ceremony, The Rocky Mountain News reported. Snow provided an appropriate seasonal backdrop.

Gary Michael, an ordained minister who maintains a chapel-art studio in his home in Congress Park, did the honors. He said he has married about 500 couples but this Christmas Day wedding was a first.

The engagement and wedding was very much a Christmas and family affair. Cathy Spencer, who works for her new mother-in-law as an accountant, met her husband-to-be at a company Christmas party. They became romantically involved a year later while Spencer was spending Christmas Eve at the Haucks' home.

Hauck proposed last year while Spencer was sitting on Santa's lap at the mall.

In Spencer's family, Christmas weddings are becoming a tradition. Her parents married on Christmas 37 years ago.