SAXONBURG — “I call it a wedding chapel,” said Saxonburg Mayor Pamela Bauman, showing off the former police dispatcher’s area in the Saxonburg borough building that she has decorated to be an appropriate backdrop for the nuptials she performs.

“Monday night (Oct. 6) I was just sitting there thinking about upcoming weddings that I have and how I could make them more pleasant,” said Bauman. “They’re not unpleasant, but they are not pretty.”

Bauman, who is empowered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to perform marriages, said she usually marries couples coming to her office in the borough building at 420 W. Main St. in a small conference room or a larger multipurpose room if there is a more numerous wedding party.

Fitting the former dispatcher’s area with decor more in line with a wedding came to Bauman, who owns an antique and gift shop on Main Street, that Monday.

“I started planning it in my head,” Bauman said. “Tuesday, I loaded my car with what I thought I could use. I slowly started creating what my vision was.

“No money from the borough was used in decorating the chapel,” she said.

The room now comes equipped with candelabras, flowers in vases, a fabric wedding trellis, a marble-topped end table and a wedding gown attached to the wall.

“I wanted to make something better, prettier, from what had been a more functional space,” said Bauman.

“A lot of people don’t know mayors can marry people,” Bauman said. “I am honored to do it. I am privileged to marry someone.

“Let’s make it as pretty and pleasant an occasion that I can,” said Bauman for the impetus to redecorate the space.

Bauman said she has married nearly a dozen couples since taking office in January.

Judy Moser, Butler County registrar of wills and clerk of orphans’ court whose office issues marriage licenses, said she wasn’t aware of any other mayor or district judge in the county who has a marriage-themed room for performing weddings.

“I’m actually not aware of one,” said Moser. “I think that’s a nice idea.”

Moser said Saxonburg attracts a lot of weddings because of the gazebo in the town’s Roebling Park.

District Judge Sue Haggerty, who can also perform weddings at her courtroom at 333 W. Main St., said, “She showed me hers and I thought it looked great.”

But she doubted she would follow Bauman’s lead.

Haggerty said, “I have to do mine (weddings) in my courtroom, so it’s not like I can do a wedding section.

“I think it is a great idea,” Haggerty said. “It’s our little Vegas chapel.”

Bauman said the decorations weren’t intended to entice more couples to come to Saxonburg to be married.

“I didn’t do it for more weddings, I simply did it to make it more special,” Bauman said.

“I didn’t want it to be cheesy. I wanted it to be classy and memorable and pretty,” she said.

She had her first wedding scheduled for 2 p.m. Oct. 10.

Bauman said she expected she would add seasonal touches to the wedding chapel as the holidays approach.