Burt and Loni wed among the Stars (from the old newspaper archives - 1988)
Michael Romano, The Palm Beach Post
Originally published in print on April 30, 1988  \n Actor Burt Reynolds and longtime companion Loni Anderson exchanged marriage vows Friday while five media helicopters circled in tight formation arou…
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Palm Beach Post
Historical Entertainment News

Originally published in print on April 30, 1988

Actor Burt Reynolds and longtime companion Loni Anderson exchanged marriage vows Friday while five media helicopters circled in tight formation around the actor’s 160-acre ranch west of Jupiter.

A crowd of 65 guests – including such celebrities as Perry Como, Ann-Margaret and Jim Nabors – attended the simple ceremony, which began at 1:53 p.m. in the cream-colored chapel built for the occasion on Reynolds’ horse ranch and feed farm.

Afterward, the couple rode a motorized stagecoach to a reception in a flower-bedecked airplane hangar, dining on seafood and salmon and sipping Dom Perignon champagne while a five-piece orchestra played 1940s-era music.

“We’re both thrilled to be newlyweds after being together for 6 ½ years,” Reynolds said, 52, through spokesman Peggy Gossett. “I love to be a newlywed at my age.”

Reynolds and Anderson, who met in 1981 during a Merv Griffin talk show, planned a five-day honeymoon in the Bahamas aboard The Golden Eagle, a yacht owned by St. Louis beer baron August Busch, Gossett said.

The bride and groom entered the chapel from the opposite sides, Anderson escorted by Burt’s father, Burt Reynolds Sr. Her sister, Andrea Sams of Minnesota, was matron of honor, and daughter Deidra Hoffman was maid of honor.

Reynolds’ mother, Fern, wearing a yellow dress, attended the ceremony in a wheelchair because of a broken rib. She did not attend the reception.

Nabors flew to the wedding from his home in Hawaii and toasted the newlyweds with two songs, Love Is Here To Stay and The Lord’s Prayer. After he finished the second song, Dr. Jess Moody of Van Nuys, Calif., former pastor of First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, pronounced the couple man and wife.

One of the white wedding gazebos inside the hangar contained a three-tiered, heart-shaped cake laced with gardenias and white satin ribbons. The centerpiece was dogwood, white lilacs and orchids.

More than 100 people – some arriving as early as 8 a.m. – gathered outside the tall white iron gates of the Reynolds ranch, which was protected throughout the ceremony by a team of uniformed Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies. Security inside the chapel and reception area was provided by deputies dressed in business suits.

Meanwhile, dozens of media representatives gathered at vantage points around the ranch, on Jupiter Farms Road 1 ½ miles south of Indiantown Road. During the reception, as many as five helicopters carrying news-media representatives hovered about 500 feet above the Reynolds Ranch.

After the ceremony, the newlyweds posed for pictures while many of the guests walked to the reception area. Reynolds and Anderson joined the reception about 2:40 p.m.

Word of the marriage spread quickly throughout the day, prompting a steady stream of flowers and congratulatory telegrams.

“This is a big day, today, in Jupiter,” said Margaret Kozlowski, a Port St. Lucie resident who stood outside the gate. “Things like this don’t happen too often – I mean for Burt to get married anywhere, well . . . that’s important.”

Several of the groom’s celebrity friends reportedly were unable to attend the wedding – including comedian-actor Dom Deluise, who did make it to the reception.

The guests began arriving shortly after noon, most of them hidden behind jet-black window tint. Each guest’s name was checked off on a typewritten guest list monitored by Sheriff’s Deputy Bob Allen.

Nabors, seated on the passenger side of a white Ford Taurus station wagon, arrived at 12:45 p.m. Anderson arrived about 10 minutes later, smiling and briefly waving to the crowd from the back of a white Ford van. She turned her head away as the van passed a bank of photographers and television cameras.

The groom reportedly arrived just after 1 p.m., invisible behind the tinted windows of a stretch limousine that cruised unquestioned past the phalanx of sheriff’s deputies.

The marriage is the second for Reynolds, who was married to actress Judy Carne in June 1963. It is the third marriage for Anderson, 41, who gained fame with her role as a secretary in the television series WKRP in Cincinnati.

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Anderson wore a long-sleeved white jersey dress with Victorian collar fitted with a banded lace jacket accented with rhinestones, designed by Robert Turturice of Los Angeles. She wore neither a hat nor veil.

Reynolds was dressed in a navy-blue, two-piece pinstripe suit, a navy tie with red polka dots and a matching pocket square. His best man was Vic Prinzi, who works for General Foods in Tampa and played with Reynolds on the Florida State University football team in 1953 and 1954.

Preparations for the affair began early Thursday and stretched almost to the time the bride and groom stepped to the altar for the ceremony, which lasted until 2:06 p.m.

Tom Scruggs, who delivered 15,000 pounds of ice to the Reynolds ranch Friday morning, said he spoke with several acting apprentices from the Burt Reynolds Institute of Theater Training who were “pitching in” at the ranch before the ceremony.

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“They said the problem was trying to keep the wedding a secret,” Scruggs said. “Everyone was looking at their watches as they prepared the room. ‘Time is the stickler,’ one guy said. ‘We don’t want him to blow up – we know he has a hot temper. We respect him enough to try to make things as smooth as possible, especially on his wedding day.’”

“They love Loni,” Scruggs said. “They feel this is a marriage that’s going to work – the way they touch each other, how attentive they are around each other.”

He said the reception area was “totally white – there were 6-foot-high plants, ficus, ferns around the gazebos.”

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Three of the gazebos held bars – one for the champagne, one for liquor and one for beer. Along one of the walls, behind the three gazebos, there were cases of Corona, Budweiser and Busch beers.

Thirty cases of Dom Perignon champagne were served, placed in large barrels wrapped in white linen. Rows of tall-stemmed crystal champagne glasses were set out on each, six-person table.

The hall was decorated with white and blue streamers, emanating from a large glittery wedding bell in the middle of the ceiling.

Anderson, wearing a new 7-carat wedding ring, is expected to return to Los Angeles after the honeymoon to finish a made-for-television movie, Leave Her to Heaven.

Reynolds, star of such films as Deliverance and Smokey and the Bandit, will return to his horse ranch to continue work with his Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre on Indiantown Road. He is said to spend about 60 percent of his time in the Palm Beach County area.

He had telegraphed his intentions two months ago, announcing during a magazine interview that he planned to marry within a year. Reynolds later made a $10,000 wager with Johnny Carson to underscore his plans.

I’m going to use the money for the honeymoon,” Reynolds joked.

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