Rod Stewart stuns wedding couple on Las Vegas Strip
Rod Stewart. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. Legend. Knight.
Wedding singer?
That too.
Stewart was was the topper of a fairy-tale wedding for British couple Sharon Cook and Andrew Aitchison, who were left in a lurch after the airline Thomas Cook collapsed and canceled all of its international flights on Sept. 23.
Thousands of passengers abruptly lost their flights. Cook (who coincidentally shares a surname with the defunct travel company) and Aitchison had booked Thomas Cook from their home in Liverpool, England, to Las Vegas.
The airline was a frequent carrier between Las Vegas and the U.K. About 600,000 travelers were stranded after the touring company ceased operations.
Cook and Aitchison had arranged to be married at Caesars Palace, inviting 14 guests for the ceremony scheduled for Venus Garden Chapel. A Caesars Entertainment employee reportedly found a social media post from the U.K. reporting the stranded guests’ plight, to initiate a quick recovery plan.
Caesars Entertainment and Delta Airlines teamed to offer to fly the couple to Vegas anyway and present the wedding as planned.
Kind of.
Stewart stepped up as a first-class upgrade, with a guitarist and a pair of string players from his Colosseum residency. They performed, “Have I told You Lately.”
Stewart then offered the wedding party tickets to his Friday night performance at Caesars.
“I can’t imagine the disappointment you must have felt, not being able to travel with Thomas Cook. That must have been dreadful,” Stewart said to the couple just as he arrived. He then draped his arm around the bride and sang through the song.
The couple said they were stunned as hotel and airline officials assembled a plan to bring them to the Strip.
“It was unbelievable, we were so excited,” Aitchison said in a video produced by the company chronicling the ceremony.
“We didn’t think it was real, to be honest,” Cook said. “We thought, this doesn’t happen to normal people like us … I just said, ‘I do,’ and here comes Rod Stewart. I’m shocked!”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His PodKats podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
