A Calgary couple got the best wedding gift ever when their favourite musician, Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea, crashed their reception on Sunday.
All it took was 580 tweets.
For a year and a half, Dana McKinlay and Stewart Dowd set out on a carefully planned social media campaign to ask #AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding.
“For the next 582 days we’re going to post one story or photo a day about the adventures of our lives together, with Alan Doyle’s music as our backdrop,” the couple tweeted from their joint Twitter account. “All this in hopes of getting the man to play our wedding!”
The couple had been longtime fans of the Newfoundland singer, using his folky cadence to quell their homesickness when they lived in various countries around the world.
“Dana and I have lived in five countries over the last six years and Alan’s music is what really connected us back home to Canada,” Dowd told the National Post. “We’d be in Cambodia or Vietnam and feel a little homesick so we’d put on some Alan Doyle and listen to him almost every day.”
Hopes rose early for the couple when just one month after they started tweeting at Doyle, he dedicated a song to them at his Calgary show in March 2018.
As each day passed on their campaign, the two chronicled a notable moment.
Of course, there was the wedding planning.
Story 579: It's the last night!!! Butterflies in our stomachs! The only cure? Invite 34 of our closest friends for PEI mussels and Keg prime rib crank up some @alanthomasdoyle and get the party started!! One more sleep! #AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding pic.twitter.com/0dtZnGRvMc
— Alan Doyle, Will You Play Our Wedding? (@StewandDana2019) September 14, 2019
Listening to Doyle and Great Big Sea while wining and dining in the Okanagan Valley.
Story 532: Sometimes you've seen a little, but it ain't enough! Touring the Okanagan with this crew! Guess who's our soundtrack? You guessed it @alanthomasdoyle, its you!#AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding pic.twitter.com/TqZjRWPN36
— Alan Doyle, Will You Play Our Wedding? (@StewandDana2019) July 30, 2019
And they shared glimpses of their regular lives.
Story 360: Sitting at home avoiding the cold. Time for some comfort. Stew on the stove, rum in hand and @alanthomasdoyle on the speaker. Pretty decent. It's nice to have the Habs beating the Ducks on TV as well. We could get use to winter.#AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding
— Alan Doyle, Will You Play Our Wedding? (@StewandDana2019) February 6, 2019
The 580 tweets paid off. The Great Big Sea lead singer showed up with a surprise performance for the hopeful couple.
He sang his solo song “Take Us Home” — the one he dedicated at the Calgary performance — for McKinlay and Dowd and gave them a personalized gift, a guitar that had only ever been played once — the one Doyle strummed for the couple’s wedding song.
A video posted to Twitter shows the wedding party huddled together, seemingly unaware of the homegrown singer’s presence a few metres away. Doyle pulls the guitar out of its case and giddily smiles at the camera.
It’s showtime for @alanthomasdoyle in Charlottetown for @StewandDana2019’s wedding!#AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding pic.twitter.com/tkBSlJGARv
— Brendan Paddick (@BrendanPaddick) September 15, 2019
Dowd admitted he was the last person to notice Doyle approaching the huddle.
“Dana and I were signing our wedding certificate and he sneaks up behind the crowd. I was facing away from him, we were pronounced husband and wife, and then this song starts playing,” he said.
“I was like, ‘I don’t remember telling people to play a song,'” he laughed.
When the newlyweds turned around at the strum of the guitar, their jaws dropped, unable to believe their eyes. Their dream come true, the married couple sealed the moment with a kiss before their first dance.
“I have this, I have this for the rest of my life,” McKinlay said. “This is all we wanted.”
In later photos, the couple, bridesmaids and groomsmen all posed with Doyle.
#MeetTheWeddingParty & the wedding crasher @alanthomasdoyle at @StewandDana2019’s wedding!#TheWeddingChronicles
— Brendan Paddick (@BrendanPaddick) September 15, 2019
Nicole (#MaidOfHonour)
Annika
Jenia
Rielley (#Newfoundlander)
Gill
Jess
Kyle (#BestMan)
Julio
Steve
Kieran
Jordan
Felo#AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding pic.twitter.com/VgIw0Oid6T
The National Post reached out to Doyle but he declined through his publicist, saying he’d prefer the focus remain on the newlyweds.
McKinlay and Dowd posted a video of the musician crashing their wedding, but have yet to give anymore updates on their post-Doyle life.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
