Couples have cold feet

GEORGETOWN, Colo. -- When the Rev. Harry Heilmanz faced 50 men and 50 women about to exchange wedding vows, many had cold feet.

His words of comfort?

"The Bible says, 'Let the two come together so they may be warmer than one,'" he told the marrying couples, gathering atop the Loveland Basin ski area, 12,500 feet above sea level.

Twenty couples tied the knot on Valentine's Day, and 30 reaffirmed their vows.

"We're here at the Continental Divide, at the closest to God you can get," said Carol Tijm of Golden, Colo.

She wore a white evening gown and carried ski poles wrapped in satin and bouquets adorning the handles. Her new husband, Peter, wore a white-tie tuxedo.

Both get-ups had plenty of room for ski boots.

It was the 11th year of the Mountaintop Wedding Ceremony at Loveland, about 40 miles west of Denver.

After the ceremony, the couples skied through a veil of snow flurries and down the slope.

Steve and Denise Menke of St. Louis, attending the wedding of their daughter Kelley, sipped apple schnapps in a warming hut.

"It was wonderful. I cried," Denise Menke said. "And my tears froze."