My wife wrote about weddings for years, but never one like this, never one in a hot-air balloon that crashed so ... unceremoniously in the yard of a Rancho Peñasquitos man turned uninvited guest who rushed to help Monday, then served the bride a glass of wine. 
 
 Who’s the wedding crasher in that situation? 
 
 What? The “Today” show and CNN cracked similar jokes. How could I resist? 
 
 Jonathan and Kerin Narcisse became America’s most famous newlyweds overnight, after a balloon with 14 souls aboard, including theirs, crashed in North County and gave bride and groom and media outlets nationwide quite a story. 
 
 Balloon mishap 
 
 Both of them laughed about it, long and often, when we talked on Tuesday. Luckily, only one of the passengers (and none of the eight people in the wedding party) was hurt, and that injury was minor. 
 
 Everything else about this story? Just the opposite of minor. 
 
 Jonathan is a former Des Moines, Iowa, school board member who finished third in the 2010 race to be governor of that fine state and now publishes two newspapers and is editor-in-chief of a third. Kerin is an Iowa native turned chaplain at San Diego Hospice who has always wondered what being near death — near your own — was really like. 
 
 There was a sense of peace Monday. “And of course Jonathan was saying enough Jesuses to keep us all covered,” she said. 
 
 She never would have guessed she’d be near death on her wedding day, especially since the whole overblown idea was hers to begin with. She’d dreamed about hot-air balloons for years and would tell her kids from a previous marriage that she wanted to get married in one. Yeah, sure, mom. 
 
 The couple first met when he gave a speech in Iowa more than a decade ago, and again when they both tried to get the same school board member elected in 2003. But he was married with daughters — named Integrity and Perseverance — and nine years ago, she moved to San Diego to pursue a new life, if not that recurring dream of a hot-air balloon. 
 
 His marriage ended soon after, and they went about their lives without knowing what the other was up to. Then they reconnected on Facebook. 
 
 In mid-November, he professed his love to her by phone. Pretty much just like that. 
 
 She was skeptical. She hung up, but he didn’t give up. Next phone call, she was still unsure about moving back to Iowa, but agreed to visit. 
 
 Talk about a whirlwind. On Dec. 14, he took one of his daughters to a midnight showing of “The Hobbit,” then flew to San Diego to make it to Kerin’s work party that night. He carried a woman’s winter coat, a scarf and some gloves he had bought in Iowa, along with a stuffed animal and a Kay Jewelers’ ring catalog. He was on his knees before he took off his hat at her house in Mission Hills. 
 
 She said yes. And later this: “You might not have to give up where you live, but you have to go up in a hot-air balloon to get married.” 

 It was supposed to have been a romantic sunset wedding in a hot-air balloon for Kerin and Jonathan Narcisse. But romance quickly turned to fear as the couple and 11 others, including their wedding party and the balloon's operator, braced for a crash landing. 
 
 One moment Kerin and Jonathan were exchanging their wedding vows, thousands of feet in the air, the next, the newlyweds were on their sides, stranded, in a stranger's backyard. A member of the wedding party recorded the crash on her cellphone. 
 
 The newlyweds had no idea what was happening. 
 
 "A couple times he tried to land, we floated over," Jonathan Narcisse said. "We kept missing landing spots. Next thing you know, we're descending and I'm thinking, 'How is he going to land here, because there's no place to land.'" 
 
 The balloon hit a fence, skidded through some trees, and then stopped. 
 
 "I got a little worried when we hit the fence and I thought, 'Well, if the fence doesn't stop us then we're going down this hill,'" Kerin Narcisse said. 
 
 Making the ordeal all the more terrifying, the bride's dream of a mid-air wedding was actually the groom's worst nightmare, as it turns out. He's scared of heights. 
 
 "I am," he said. "Terrified."
– A couple in San Diego almost had one of the shortest weddings on record after taking their vows in a hot air balloon that crash-landed soon afterward. The balloon, with the couple and 11 others on board, missed its landing spot and almost clipped a power line before the basket landed on its side in a stranger's yard, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. The homeowner crashed by the wedding rushed to help and offered the bride a glass of wine. "A couple times he tried to land, we floated over," the groom—who agreed to the balloon wedding despite a fear of heights—tells ABC. "We kept missing landing spots. Next thing you know, we're descending and I'm thinking, 'How is he going to land here, because there's no place to land.'" Amazingly, only one member of the party suffered a minor back injury in the crash landing. The couple now plans to go skydiving to celebrate their first anniversary.