The Idaho Center for the Book, located at Boise State University, forged new ground March 21 when it became the site of a spring wedding.

Judge Michael Dennard performed the ceremony for Elizabeth Congdon, a Boise State University linguistics student and self-proclaimed bibliophile, and Quinn Pritchard, a Boise State alumnus.

With a guest list limited to just their 5- and 18-year-old daughters from a previous marriage and relationship, the couple's parents, and the bride's brother and his wife, the wedding party squeezed into the tiny space, surrounded by shelves and tables filled with magazines, books, flyers and projects in progress. Amid the clutter and creative chaos, the couple became the first in the history of the United States to turn a Center for the Book into a Little Chapel of the Chimes.

Pritchard, a screenwriter who also works as a brand manager and creative arts director for a company in Utah, originally suggested holding the ceremony in a public library, but the couple decided that wouldn’t be cozy enough for a wedding. Then Congdon remembered having visited the Idaho Center for the Book while taking a poetry class from center director Tom Trusky the previous semester.

"It seemed like a good idea, so we called Tom. He was very gracious and accommodating," she said. “We didn't want anything elaborate. We just love books. Quinn's a writer and I'm a reader and it's a comfortable space for us — just like our home."

While initially surprised by his former student’s request, Trusky was delighted to comply. “While the Idaho Center for the Book has functioned like all other state centers in bringing together books and bibliophiles, we would be delighted to begin a new chapter for state centers, serving as a site for the formal binding of book lovers,” he said, tongue-in-cheek.

The Idaho Center for the Book was established in 1993 to encourage and promote an interest in reading, writing, making, disseminating and collecting books. With assistance from the Idaho

Commission on the Arts, the center sponsors the biennial "Booker's Dozen," a traveling exhibition of 14 eccentric books by Idaho artists.

For more information on the Idaho Center for the Book, visit http://www.lili.org/icb/.

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Tom Trusky

Idaho Center for the Book

426-1999

Kathleen Craven

communications and marketing

426-3275

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