Couple’s Steelers-Packers passions score Super Bowl wedding in Las Vegas

By Kyle B. Hansen

Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011 | midnight

There are football fans, and then there’s Claudio Montenegro.

The Las Vegas native is a die-hard Pittsburgh Steelers fan. But he doesn’t just watch his team’s games every Sunday. He hosts a weekly buffet, and all his friends come to watch all the games on the seven TVs he has in one room.

There's also a screen in the bathroom to make sure no one misses any action.

Neighbor Gregg Pendleton said he isn’t much of a football fan, but he still doesn’t miss the games at Montenegro’s house.

“The Sunday parties are too good to pass up,” he said. “It’s better than the sports book.”

So when Montenegro started dating someone, football was an important topic to discuss.

“She had to be a football fan,” said David Serrano, Montenegro’s childhood friend and fellow sports enthusiast.

Luckily, Montenegro found Christine McCoy, whom he met nearly three years ago on her last day working at Hank’s Steakhouse at Green Valley Ranch, where he still works.

The two went out for drinks and then started watching football together; she fit right in with his friends watching the games.

“She goes just as crazy as he does,” Serrano said.

The two got engaged in October.

“This is definitely my passion, and I’ve just happened to be fortunate to meet a beautiful young girl that loves her team and her football and we can share that,” Montenegro said.

There’s just one problem: McCoy is a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan.

That may have complicated things for some couples, but as it became apparent during the postseason that the Packers and Steelers had a serious chance of facing each other in the Super Bowl, it presented an opportunity for these two.

Why not have a Super Bowl wedding? A coworker made the suggestion, and Montenegro liked it.

“Babe, we can either wait until the end of the year and do it up, or let’s do something fun and crazy,” Montenegro recalled telling McCoy.

She agreed, so they ditched their traditional wedding plans and started cheering even harder for their two teams in the playoffs.

When both teams won, the couple suddenly had a wedding to pull off in two weeks.

“Will the Packers and the Steelers meet in the Super Bowl ever again in my lifetime?” Montenegro asked. “I don’t know. The odds are tough.”

The happy couple was excited to do something nontraditional and memorable, but not all of their family was as excited about wearing football jerseys to a wedding.

“I know my family is just a little bit disappointed. They wanted to see the whole white dress thing and see me walk down the aisle,” McCoy said. “But at the end of the day, it’s about us being happy more than it is about the whole big wedding thing. We’re excited and we like the originality of it and we’re having fun with it.”

They also figured if they were going to have a Super Bowl wedding, they should go to the big game itself.

Montenegro’s sister lives near Dallas, where the game is being played this year, and she volunteered to buy them plane tickets as a wedding present.

“It did kind of fall in place,” Montenegro said. “We’re just trying to seize the moment.”

They figure they'll be happy no matter which team wins.

“We can’t lose,” Montenegro said. “We’re going to become one, so at that point, if my team wins, she wins. If her team wins, I win, so it’s a good investment on a future life together.”

Planning a wedding in two weeks was stressful, McCoy said, but their neighbor Angel Pendleton loves to throw themed parties, so she helped them get custom jerseys, decorations and football-themed cupcakes for the wedding.

“They’re so excited about it, it’s hard not to get excited about it, too,” Pendleton said.

Early Saturday afternoon, just three hours before their flight to Texas, the two exchanged vows at the Special Memory Wedding Chapel downtown, with about 45 of their friends and family members watching, each wearing a football jersey.

After the officiator, who was also wearing a jersey, pronounced them husband and wife, the group cheered before one side of the room started shouting “go Packers” and the other side responded with cries of “go Steelers.”

The couple walked down the aisle together on their way to their unique honeymoon.

And as they walked out the door, Montenegro offered the benediction on the ceremony: “It’s football time!”