Romona sits down in front of a group of WKYC staffers in the station's lakefront community room and begins opening one of the many bridal-shower gifts stacked on a long table behind her. At the other end of the room, a sheet cake made by Sharon Marschall, wife of WOIO-TV 19 anchorman (and onetime WUAB-TV 43 co-worker) Jack Marschall, has been laid out on the refreshment table. Written on the top in red-icing script are the words, "Romona and Rodney: As the sun starts a new day, so your love begins a new life."
As Romona continues tearing wrapping paper from gifts, it becomes apparent that she registered for an abundance of basic kitchen items at Dillard's and Williams-Sonoma, right down to cookie sheets, spatulas and her very first blender. There's a toaster oven from co-anchor Tim White, a honey dispenser from weekend morning anchor and education reporter Kim Wheeler, a cookbook from morning weatherwoman Hollie Strano.
"A lot of people thought I had all of this stuff," Romona says as returns a pair of tongs to its box. "They were stressing over, €˜What do I get you?' But I don't buy this kind of stuff because I don't use it."
Romona, it turns out, doesn't know how to cook. Her kitchen, she admits, doesn't even look lived-in.
"I'm going to learn how to make five nice meals," she declares after unwrapping a gift certificate for a private cooking lesson. "I really am."
The shower at the station is just the first of Romona's pre-wedding events. Friends take her to Miami's South Beach for a weekend-long bachelorette party, and a pal hosts a girls-only shower in her Lyndhurst home. The bride makes the mistake of taking pictures of the latter — many of which are of her opening and holding up sexy gag gifts — to an area store for developing. She good-naturedly relates her embarrassment when she first looked at the photos and discovered what the clerk really meant when she quipped, "Nice pictures, Romona!"
"My girlfriends were like, 'Why in the world did you get them developed locally? We thought you'd send them away!' " she remembers, then laughs. "I said, 'I forgot that I'm a television anchor!' "
