Kansas City-area pastor heads to Tampa to do weddings for lovers in love with Chiefs
She drove the wedding van 1,250 miles from Independence to Tampa, Florida — a traveling chapel cruising down the highways in a hot pink blur.
This Super Bowl weekend, Pastor Nancy Kerr added Chiefs red to her design — Chiefs flags, a Chiefs-red pastor’s robe, Chiefs license plate brackets and a 7-foot KC Wolf along for the ride. Her mission: to wed or renew the vows of, as many Chiefs lovers willing to say “I do.”
For those who love the Chiefs and love each other, it seemed the perfect pairing.
“I think I’m going to marry at least 15 couples,” Kerr said earlier, picking a figure, hardly random, that is the jersey number of quarterback Patrick Mahomes. “That’s the goal for sure, to hit Patrick’s number.”
Or more.
Kerr, soon to turn 60, is a fan. “I was raised in the Chiefs Kingdom,” said the longtime owner of KC Weddings to Go. “I’ve got football cards from the ’60s: — lots of them. Willie Lanier, Otis Taylor, all those guys.”
Kerr began marrying people full time in 1991. The rolling chapel is a newer addition. It helped give Kerr a brief moment of fame two years ago during Super Bowl LIII (New England Patriots over the Los Angeles Rams 13-3) when she was featured in a Head & Shoulders Super Bowl commercial, part of the company’s “headstrong” women entrepreneur campaign.
Kerr had just bought a van and was getting it ready. Head & Shoulders, unable to wait, created one of its own to shoot the commercial. The Ford van she has now is hers.
This year she was asked to officiate across Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg during a weekend fundraiser, the Run It Back 2 Back BBQ Tour. It’s co-hosted by the Kansas City Barbeque Society, which sanctions contests and promotes barbecuing worldwide, and the Arrowhead South fan club. Two pit masters, KC fan Richard Fergola of Fergolicious BBQ and Tampa Bay fan “Rub” Bagby of Florida’s Swamp Boys BBQ, will be cooking. Money raised supports the Barbeque Society’s foundation and Bill Edwards Foundation for the Arts , which supports youth performing arts programs in the Tampa area.
Veils, of course, are optional. But because of COVID-19, masks are recommended. Kerr is set to hold her weddings from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Al Lang Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Rowdies soccer team.
Although the weddings are free, couples wanting to show their love for each other and the Chiefs need tickets to the charity event, $100 apiece for adults that evening.
Also, as in football, rules are rules. While the ceremony is real, a marriage is only legally valid for those who first get a Florida marriage license. Otherwise, Kerr said, all the paperwork has to wait until a return home after the Super Bowl, which Kerr predicts the Chiefs will win by 3 points on a Harrison Butker kick.
“It’s going to be real tight,” she feels.
These aren’t the first Florida weddings for Kerr. According to her Heartland Weddings & Event Photography Facebook page, Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez flew her to Miami in October 2018 to perform his wedding ceremony in Spanish.
Kerr’s wedding dream now?
“I would love to marry Pat and Brittany. That’s my next ultimate goal,” she said of Mahomes’ fiancee, Brittany Matthews, who is also pregnant. The two have dated since they went to high school together in Whitehouse, Texas.
“I’ve had the Super Bowl commercial. I’ve married Salvador Perez and a couple other Royals players” Kerr said. “If I could marry Pat Mahomes, that would just complete my list. That, and this — going to the Super Bowl. We’re definitely ‘Go Chiefs’ all the way.”
