ONTARIO — Orion and Gabriella DeYoe had a fairly traditional wedding. It took place in a church, with bridesmaids, groomsmen … and a blue-and-yellow robot rolling down the aisle.
Long before they decided to get married, the couple joked about including a robot in their wedding party.
“Before Orion and I even got engaged, we talked about, ‘It would be really funny if we had a robot as the ring bearer,’” said Gabriella. “After we got engaged and as we kept planning, that was the only idea that was sticking in my head.”
“It was kind of a cool way to give a nod to the team that brought us together.”
The DeYoes met as teenagers through Stellar Robotics, a non-profit K-12 STEM education program serving the Richland County area. Orion helped start the program in 2014, months after graduating high school. Gabriella joined that year as a freshman and remained part of the team for four years.
After graduating high school in 2018, Gabriella joined Orion as a mentor to the team. The two began dating that September.
The Stellar Robotics team is an affiliate of FIRST, a non-profit organization that promotes STEM education for grades K through 12. Each year teams within the FIRST network are given a mission scenario and six weeks to build, design and program a robot that can complete tasks necessary for that mission.
Antares, who served as the DeYoe’s ring bearer, was the robot used by the Stellar Robotics team for the 2019 FIRST Robotics competition. It weighs 117 pounds and can range from 4 to 9.9 feet in height, depending on whether or not its elevator is extended.
While things went off without a hitch during the wedding, Antares experienced a slight hiccup during the rehearsal. Tyson Rupp, a high school junior who drives the team robots during competitions, was standing outside the sanctuary with a remote control when Antares’ camera stopped working. Rupp’s attempt to drive blind resulted in the robot crashing into a row of chairs.
Fortunately, Antares performed flawlessly on the big day — it rolled quietly down the aisle, paused while the best man grabbed the ring and took its place beside the groomsmen.
“It was a way to make our ceremony more personalized,” Orion said. “The robot represents something that is really important to both of us and it made me really happy that we were able to include it in our wedding.”
The fact that Antares had been designed and built by the couple’s closest friends made it all the more special.
“Most of (the team) we have mentored and been friends with for five years, so that was really cool because it was a way for them to all be involved,” Gabriella said.
The wedding also served as a reunion of sorts for team members who had graduated and left the area. All six of Orion’s groomsmen were Stellar members or alumni; as well as five of Gabriella’s bridesmaids.
“A lot of the people that have joined the team have become our best friends,” Gabriella said. “All of the people in our wedding party have gone their separate ways, but everybody came back and it started right back where we left off like nothing had ever changed.”
