By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

The now infamous Immaculate Conception fire engulfed the beautiful downtown Atlanta church on Friday, August 6. Luckily, no one had scheduled a wedding in the church for that ill-fated weekend.

But a wedding had indeed been scheduled for the following weekend. It was to have been one of those historic Immaculate Conception parish occasions.

Cindy McKool had lived in the downtown parish all her life. She and her sisters had attended the grade school at I.C. Cindy received her First Communion in the Church and had also received the Sacrament of Confirmation there. Cindy's parents, Siba and Margaret McKool had been married at the Immaculate Conception.

When Cindy and her groom-to-be, Charles Zanaty, planned their August 14 wedding, the Immaculate Conception sanctuary was the only spot considered for the blessed occasion. Surrounded by all that parish and family history, Cindy and Charles would pronounce their vows.

It was not to be.

"She was so upset," says Margaret McKool. "She said she would probably go ahead with the ceremony in the burnt out church if they would clean it up in time."

"But we had to quickly go to work," says the bride's mother who is the sister of DeKalb Co. Chairman Manuel Maloof, who was devastated by the loss of her grand old parish church. "A new church had to be found. Cindy called Monsignor Kiernan at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish and he was able to help her."

Cindy did indeed call Monsignor Donald Kiernan, who had been stationed at the Immaculate Conception back in the early fifties. "I was scheduled to get married at the I.C.," said the frantic bride. "Well," replied the cigar-puffing pastor, "I hope it doesn't rain, it does not have a roof.'

To Cindy's relief, Immaculate Heart of Mary was free, new hand-written invitations were sent and the wedding of Cindy and Charles took place at another "shrine" of the Blessed Mother, as the 200 guests from Atlanta and the groom's hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, looked on.

The reception for the new Mr. and Mrs. Charles Zanaty took place at the Garden Room, next door to the burnt-out church. On their way, the happy couple paused, nostalgically, for one photograph outside the remains of the grand old Shrine as a new page in their lives and the life of the Immaculate Conception parish was about to be written.