WEST CHAZY — Pauline Cota was a vampire.

Travis Barber was the Grim Reaper.

But they didn't wear the attire to a Halloween party — they donned it for their wedding.

Cota and Barber both attended Beekmantown High School but didn't meet until years later, when they were introduced through friends.

The couple, who have been together for 11 years, said they decided to have the Halloween wedding "just to be different."

"We wanted to have something exciting," Cota said. "It's spur of the moment."

Cota's father gave her away dressed as a vampire, as well, while her mother, Candy Cota, dressed as a witch.

"You were always different — even growing up," Candy said to her daughter.

The 60 or so guests were dressed in haunted garb and the couple's children — Brandon Barber, Alexandria Whitney, Cheyenne Cota and Kai Cota — took part in the costumed wedding garbed as Predator, a witch and vampires.

Town of Chazy Justice Carolyn Pratt married the couple at their Clark Street home.

Cota and Barber said they wanted the family to be together and have a good time, so after the wedding they had a haunted reception with a cemetery, fog, hay bales, Halloween lantern lights and hanging spiders.

The wedding cake wasn't traditional, either. It was a vampire cake with red "blood" drizzled around instead of icing.

A disc jockey played spooky music in the early hours of the reception and held a costume contest.

Cota and Barber just felt it was the right time to get married.

"To be honest, I'm going to be 35, and 35 was my limit for getting married," Cota joked. "He didn't have a choice."

"It was time," Barber agreed.

Cota smiled and said, "It surely will be 'til death do we part."

E-mail Michelle Besaw at: mbesaw@pressrepublican.com