When actor's CJ Byrnes & Cathleen D'Arcy of Astoria sing "I do, I do ..together, forever, the rest of our lives,"in tonight's performance of the play "I Do! I Do!" it's more than endearing-it's official.

"I first saw the show when I was 16; and I thought if I ever got married I'd like to do it like that," said D'Arcy, A waitress at (a New York) Hotel. "It was just an idea and now here we are.

Though D'Arcy kept her wedding fantasy a secret during their one year courtship, she showed Byrnes a video tape of the play, and anxiously awaited his reaction.

"I said. 'Wouldn't it be something if someone really got married during the play?' " Byrnes said. "I wasn't serious though."

The couple are producing the show themselves at the Hellenic American Cultural Center on Broadway near 44th St. in Astoria as their first mutual acting venture.

The Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt musical about50 years in the life of a married couple, debuted on the Great White Way in 1968 starring Mary Martin and Robert Preston.

Byrnes, a waiter at a Manhattan bistro, said this is the first marriage actually performed during a show. Last January, a cast member from the musical "Starlight Express," tied the knot after a matinee show.

Byrnes' mother, Ann, said she took the couple's unique wedding arrangements in stride. "I was married in the Officer's Club at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the room was decorated for a Halloween party," she said. "And one of my daughters was married on top of Mount Minnewaska upstate."

After the Rev. Donald Lemke reads the vows in the first act, the rest of the play comprises the ceremony. The two characters return as an 80-year-old couple in the final scene, still together after many trials and tribulations.

"Then we're pronounced man and wife," Byrnes said.

"Husband and wife," D'Arcy corrected.

(End Article)

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