Airplanes and newlyweds seem to go together these days as many couples jet off to their honeymoon destinations. Mexico, the Caribbean and Ireland are but a few of the places Butler County brides and bridegrooms visited after their weddings this year.

Traveling by air wasn't so typical of honeymoons 50 years ago.

Walter and Sallee Cummins of Hilliards exchanged their vows on March 12, 1952.

“My husband was in the service,” Sallee Cummins said.

He was home on leave.

“(We) took a drive up to the Summit and then we went down through West Virginia and Maryland and then we came home,” she said.

The Cumminses had never traveled together before they set off on Route 51 to Maryland and to places new to both of them. Their honeymoon route was spur-of-the-moment.

Sallee said there wasn't a place they really wanted to go to or could afford.

They stopped at motels.

“We had no special ones,” she said. “We just went until we saw one.”

“We were only gone three days because he was in the service,” Sallee said. “He had just finished boot camp in Parris Island and was going to Camp Lejeune.”

Sallee saw Walter only a few times in the next six months before finally sharing a home in California.

Robert and Joyce Zanella of Chicora tied the knot on June 29, 1957, and left the same day for a popular honeymoon destination.

“We went to Niagara Falls,” Joyce Zanella said. “We were there for about four days.”

“We stayed at a little motel called Home on the Range just along the road. We didn't have any reservations. We stopped and they had an opening,” she said.

Every day the Zanellas drove to the Canadian side of the falls.

“We had never been there before and, oh boy,” Joyce said. “We were both born and raised around Chicora, and we never went on any trips growing up. This was a big trip for both of us.”

“We just thought it would be a nice place to see and it wasn't expensive,” she said. “For the money, it was a good bang for your buck.”

It was their first of many trips to Niagara Falls. They moved to Rochester, N.Y., and their visitors always wanted to see the falls, even when it was frozen, she said.

The Zanellas received a memorable welcome when they returned to Chicora after the honeymoon. Joyce said it was a common tradition at the time for a pickup truck to arrive at the new couple's home to take them around town in the bed of the truck.

The couple sat on a bale of hay, and Joyce remembers the cans hanging on the back and banging on the road as well as the driver blowing the horn.

She said it was fun, but often couples didn't want people to know they were back in town.

“Sometimes you'd travel under a railroad trestle and they'd throw a barrel of water on you,” she said. “That's why nobody really wanted to do it.”

Joyce said their honeymoon was a good start for their marriage, “Just the fact that it lasted 60 years.”

Shirley and Robert McCandless of Renfrew walked down the aisle at the Butler Free Methodist Church on Sept. 16, 1961.

After a night in a local hotel west of Butler, they set out for the Finger Lakes in New York.

“We went to Canandaigua, N.Y.,” Shirley McCandless said. “We didn't do anything spectacular like they're doing now.”

They had heard that area in New York was beautiful.

“We just thought that was some place that sounded interesting. It was just a nice spot,” she said.

They stayed at the same motel for six nights and spent one of the days at Niagara Falls.

“We had a good time. We just enjoyed each other, walking around, eating at different restaurants,” Shirley said. “It was serene and everyone was very friendly.”

“We just wanted to get away and enjoy the scenery and the drive up,” Shirley said.

The two discovered they travel well together.

Although they haven't returned to Canandaigua, they have since visited other parts of the United States and other countries and taken 18 cruises.

“We're going to go as long as we hold out,” Shirley said. “We love, love Alaska. That's my very favorite.”

Suzann Volz of Evans City said of her wedding, “Ronny and I went to a justice of the peace, and that's where we got married. It was a Saturday. We did this all on our own.”

His sister and her husband were witnesses for them on June 10, 1967.

After making the announcement about their completed wedding to an aunt and uncle, Ronald and Suzann went to another wedding where Ronald was the best man for Wayne and Pat Schar, now of Zelienople.

The Volz newlyweds then drove the Schar newlyweds to a hotel at the Pittsburgh airport.

On Sunday, after the Schars got on an airplane, the Volzes drove to Marionville where they shared their news with Suzann's parents at their camp.

Suzann's parents weren't surprised. She already had an engagement ring and a wedding license. They just didn't have wedding plans.

On Monday, they each went back to their jobs.

It wasn't until August that they took off on a honeymoon, just before Ronald started college and his training to become a funeral director. The trip was a gift from Ronald's aunt and uncle to visit them in Pico Rivera, Calif., near Los Angeles.

It was August and it was hot. “Back then we were young, so you just kept driving. I had a convertible and we drove that. We drove with the top down and got burned like crazy,” Suzann said. “We did not have air conditioning either.”

The trip took three weeks. “We stayed in Amarillo, Texas. Back then it was motels. We stayed there and we left there and went out to California and on our way back we drove to Amarillo, Texas, and stayed in the same motel,” Suzann said.

“We were young kids. He was going to start college and money was tight.”