Last weekend, two love-struck Iowa couples got married at what is undoubtedly the greasiest, most romantic place on earth: the local bacon festival.

Tricia Snider and Tom Watson were the first to wed Saturday at the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, in Des Moines. Craig and April Rouch got married a short while later. Their vows were exchanged in a chapel that featured windows overlooking a crowd of bacon vendors, where much bacon was surely being cooked and consumed as the couples made the ultimate commitment to each other, and to bacon.

Tricia and Tom rationalized their choice of wedding venue by saying that because they "enjoyed bacon every weekend together," it made perfect sense for them to marry at a festival dedicated to smoked meat instead of somewhere else where smoked meat wasn't the theme.

Even their vows were full of bacon. Both couples promised to stay together "in good times and bacon," obscuring the traditional "in sickness and health" in favor of reminding each other that bacon was just as big a part of their relationship as each other. Bacon, they promised, would forever remain the delicious, silent third wheel that never talked back, but did significantly raise their cholesterol.

They even exchanged some romantic banter, like when the lucky groom told reporters that while he loved his wife, he loved her less than bacon. "She's second to bacon," he said, implying that the lifetime of love, support, and unbreakable intimacy offered by his wife was secondary to the joy found in the salty, fleeting taste of fried pork.

After the ceremony, a cake topped with (you guessed it) bacon, was presented to the newlyweds, who no doubt forgot about their recent matrimony as their eyes fixated on the meaty treat laid before them.

No pigs were harmed in the writing of this post.

The reception was also held at the festival, in case anyone had any doubts about how much the couples wanted to incorporate bacon into their wedding.