4th of July Wedding held at Independence Hall

Are you planning to have a 4th of July wedding next year? In need of wedding theme ideas? Why not get married at the Independence Hall in your county just like what Ralph Archbold and Linda Wilde did at the eve of America’s Independence Day this year.

Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross celebrated the eve of the Fourth of July not with fireworks but with wedding vows.

Ralph Archbold and Linda Wilde, who portray the historical figures, tied the knot Thursday evening in a public ceremony in front of Independence Hall, where the real Franklin helped draft the nation’s founding documents.

The bride and groom, as well as the entire wedding party, were in costume for the event.

“Ralph and Linda, the entire city could not be happier for you,” said Mayor Michael Nutter, who performed the brief ceremony.

After exchanging vows, Archbold and Wilde were given a standing ovation by the crowd of several thousand as the Philly Pops, who were to give a concert immediately afterward, played the wedding march.

The couple boarded a lighted open horse-drawn coach for the trip to a private reception at the city’s historic City Tavern, where Franklin himself dined along with such notables as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Archbold, who has portrayed Franklin since 1973, and Wilde met Sept. 1 after she hired him for a friend’s wedding toast. The couple then discovered a mutual love of history and education, and they announced their engagement this spring.

Patty Duffy, 37, of Northeast Philadelphia, said she came to watch the ceremony because she remembers seeing Archbold playing Franklin when she was a little girl.

A real wedding between the historical figures would have been quite a May-December affair, given the 45-year age difference (Franklin was born on Jan. 17, 1706 — by coincidence, also Archbold’s birthday — while Ross was born on New Year’s Day 1752). Both lived to the ripe old age of 84.

Franklin and his wife, Deborah, were married for more than four decades but spent many years apart because of his travels to Europe and her fear of ocean voyages. Ross married three times, losing two of her husbands during the Revolutionary War.

Source: CBS3