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Photo by Bob Pennell Kim and Ruben Rudolf talk about what it was like having their wedding story filmed, while a videotape of their nuptials, to be shown on The Learning Channel, plays behind them. Medford pair marry on TV Ritzy nuptials make Learning Channel `Wedding Story' By BILL VARBLE The program airs at 12:30 p.m. Dec. 29 on Falcon Cable Channel 16 in the Rogue Valley. Kim Taylor wore a wire to her wedding, but no, this wasn't "Married to the Mob." Taylor and her bridegroom, Ruben Rudolf, also wearing a wire, agreed to be on The Learning Channel's "A Wedding Story." The film crews and microphones were part of the deal. "A Wedding Story," now in its third season, is the most popular program in TLC's daytime lineup. Each episode tells the story of one wedding, and includes the couples' families and friends, their courtship and engagement, preparations, the walk down the aisle. Three days before their September 1997 wedding, Taylor and Rudolf, both now 29 and living in Medford, donned microphones, and camera crews started following them around. "You get a little self-conscious," he says. "I forgot all about it," she says. The resulting show documents the $10,000 celebration. In one scene, she catches him early in the ceremony for a quick aside just before walking down the aisle. "You look very calm," she whispers. That wasn't exactly true, she admits now. "I was trying to calm him down," she says with a laugh. "I was nervous," he says. Subjects on the show have ranged from a couple who bumped into each other at their 10-year class reunion and nearly got in a fight to two doctors who met in a class on advanced cardiac life support. Taylor and Rudolf's meeting in the spring of 1997 was a disaster, literally. Both worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He was a lawyer, and she was in public affairs. The Missouri River had flooded, and an entire block of the town of of Grand Forks, N.D., was on fire. They'd known each other as voices on the phone. "At a disaster, you work really long days and have meals together," she says. "You get to know each other quickly." He asked her to dinner. They started seeing each other. As their work wound down they wanted to live in the same town. Agreeing on Portland, they got her things in Virginia and began driving cross-country. He got sidetracked by FEMA to other disasters: Chicago floods, more work in Minnesota, back to Chicago. "I think people in covered wagons made it out West faster than we did," he says. By the time he went to Guam in the aftermath of Typhoon Paka, they knew they didn't want to be apart anymore. Growing up in Portland, Rudolf had often visited Southern Oregon with his family, so he jumped at the chance for a job in the Jackson County District Attorney's office. Kim got a public affairs job with Fox affiliate KMVU-TV. The production company shooting for TLC found plenty to like about the couple's wedding. It was held on Emory Point, a peninsula on Virginia's Lake Anna, about 70 miles west of Washington, D.C., on the grounds of an old mansion rented out by word of mouth (Kim's mom and dad found the place while boating one day). A wedding newsletter announced the plans in great detail. Guests stayed for six days. They signed platters which were fired in a kiln to become a permanent record. There was a huge party with a bonfire, poetry, music. In the show, the bride and groom are shown cinema verite-style talking about their relationship, the wedding and beyond. For viewers it's like attending a wedding and knowing the inside story. For the bride and groom, it's a gift that lasts. "It was awesome," Kim says. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA