Two former Herald employees had a rather frosty start to their marriage last month -- but in a good way.

It was a chilly day in Quebec when Tom Fontaine and Carrie Van Verth exchanged vows at the Ice Hotel -- Hotel de Glace -- at Duchesnay Resort on Jan. 26. Because they were the first couple to get married there this year they gained quite a lot of attention from both the resort staff and the local news media.

The hotel truly lives up to its name. Each year, it's constructed from 11,500 tons of snow and 350 tons of ice. In the springtime it melts away.

The couple had been to Quebec before, because Fontaine has ancestors there. They first heard of the Ice Hotel about a year ago and thought it would be a great place to get married.

"We thought it would be unique and memorable," Mrs. Fontaine said. "We just wanted to do something different."

She actually wanted to surprise him with a night at the Ice Hotel when they planned the trip to Quebec, but then they found out the hotel had a wedding chapel.

Mrs. Fontaine said they started "tossing the idea around" in the fall. With the help of a wedding coordinator from the resort, they were able to contact the minister, the Rev. Louis LaFrance, the florist and other key players to plan the wedding.

After driving for nearly 13 hours, the couple was awe-struck when they actually saw the resort. "Magical," was the word Mrs. Fontaine used to describe it.

"It was absolutely unbelievable," she said. "We'd seen a little bit of it from the Web site, but we didn't quite get the full spectrum of what it was like."

It was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit inside the chapel during the ceremony.

"While it would have been easy for us to get cold feet in front of the sculpted ice altar, we barely noticed the frigid conditions," Fontaine said in an e-mail message. He attributed the indifference to the cold to the "gravity of the occasion" -- or possibly the thick wool socks and brown hiking boots under his wife's gown or the long johns under his tuxedo. Mrs. Fontaine also wore ivory gloves and a matching scarf, along with a long, fur-trimmed coat over her wedding dress.

"I suppose we were cold, but we didn't notice it," Mrs. Fontaine said.

Because the Fontaines were the first couple to get married at the hotel this year, "We were joined in the presence of journalists," Mrs. Fontaine said. That meant Fontaine, a former staff writer for The Herald who is a staff writer for the Beaver County Times, found himself on the other side of the news for a change.

Following the ceremony, dozens of strangers cheered and waved sparklers as the Fontaines exited the chapel on a red carpet.

"Everyone was really excited that we were there," Mrs. Fontaine said. And despite the frigid temperatures, they were "Very warmly received," she added.

After a dogsled ride around the lake, the Fontaines had a romantic dinner for two before retiring to the 007 suite in the hotel. The room was a replica of James Bond's palace bedroom in the recent movie "Die Another Day." All the furniture was made of ice. Even the champagne flutes they drank from were made of ice.

"While our bed was made of ice, a wooden plank, foam mattress, deer pelt and heavily insulated sleeping bags separated us from the ice," Fontaine said. "We slept comfortably, but getting out of bed in the morning was a real struggle."

The Fontaines spent the following week sight-seeing around Quebec City. The last two days of their honeymoon were the first two days of Carnaval de Quebec, the world's largest winter carnival and third-largest annual extended party overall, just behind Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, according to Fontaine.

Mrs. Fontaine said both of their families were very supportive of their decision to get married out of town on their own.

"We definitely left with their blessings," she said.

But when they arrived home, their first stops were to deliver pictures and videos of the wedding to their families. They're planning a local reception for early April.

The Fontaines live in Masury. Mrs. Fontaine, a former Herald advertising sales representative, is assistant manager at Bath and Body Works in Hermitage.

The Fontaines, as former Herald employees, were not eligible for the Valentine's Day contest.