7/7/07 'Lucky' wedding date is a popular one
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By JAMIE REID Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise - Published: March 25, 2007
Numerous brides seeking luck in marriage have set their wedding day for Saturday, July 7 — the jackpot-winning 7-7-07.
"God, that's got to be a lucky day," said 28-year-old Nicole Risinger, who plans to wed then. "When I saw it on the calendar, I thought, 'Oh, my God! That's a sign.'"
Risinger, who suspected the date would be popular among brides, booked a photographer, church and reception hall in November.
Other brides who didn't book so far in advance said they have had trouble getting everything they need on the popular date.
Cadie Bratton, a 22-year-old X-ray technician student in Vidor, Texas, said her usual hairstylist was already booked on July 7. And 20-year-old Brittany LaFleur of Beaumont, Texas, had to call about six reception spots before landing a union hall.
"We were discouraged, but I didn't want to change the date," said LaFleur, a pharmacy technician. "That's my date. I wasn't going to change it."
The same is true for thousands of brides around the country.
Already, more than 31,000 couples who plan to wed on July 7 have signed up with theknot.com, a wedding planning Web site. That's about triple the number for any other Saturday in July and nearly 20,000 more than the number of couples who married on the corresponding weekend in 2006, according to the New York Times.
Several brides agreed 7-7-07 is a lucky day, yet cited the Bible — not Las Vegas "Lucky 7" slot machines — as the source.
God created the Earth in seven days, and the book of Revelations is sometimes referred to as the "Book of Sevens" because of its emphasis on the number. Some sevens in Revelation include: seven letters to seven churches, seven stars in the hand of Jesus, seven angels with seven trumpets.
"It's a holy number," said Lucky 7 bride Heather Lackey, a 24-year-old eighth-grade language arts teacher.
"It's the number of completion," LaFleur said. "I feel like it's meant to be. Like, it's divine in some way."
LaFleur and her fiance, Reginald Richmond Jr., don't gamble. Yet when asked about the date, 20-year-old Richmond said, "It's the jackpot. I guess I hit the jackpot."
While Richmond and LaFleur have planned a traditional wedding with red and green as their colors, another bride, Risinger, plans to add a little casino charm to her special day. She plans to spend her wedding night at the Isle of Capri in Lake Charles, La., and pass out poker chip-like wedding favors.
The pink chips will say "Our lucky day" and have the couple's picture on them.
Although many brides place importance on 7-7-07, mathematicians aren't particularly impressed, said Mike Breen, public awareness officer for the American Mathematical Society in Providence, R.I.
"It doesn't have any mathematical significance," he said, noting that the repeated dates come up 12 times a century, from 1-1-01 to 12-12-12. However, Breen expects that on July 7, many people will drink 7 and 7s, a mix of 7-Up and Seagram's 7 whiskey, as they did on July 7, 1977, when he was a bartender at a bowling alley.
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