The grooms did not merely select the venue for its location and style. Just as it has shown hundreds of love stories on the silver screen, the Capitol Theatre has become a common setting for their own storyline.

Thomas and Alan frequently stop by the Capitol for a post-date coffee or ice cream, and as dates have grown to family outings, it continues to serve as a backdrop for celebrations and random treats for the entire Coulter crew.

The coffee shop and ice cream parlor harkens back to the decades of films played there, displaying floor-to-ceiling memorabilia and tailoring its menu with items like the Flux Capacitor (from Back to the Future) , An Offer You Can’t Refuse (from The Godfather), and the Scrumdiddlyumptious (from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).

Maryville’s beloved Capitol was built in 1910 and housed a furniture store owned by the J.C. Penney Company until 1933. You can still see the company’s name in the entrance tilework located next door at Bella.

In 1934, the Capitol became Crescent Entertainment’s first of seventeen Southern cinemas, reflecting classic Hollywood glitz and glamour.

The venue still holds the secrets of the town’s Prohibition past. Even now, few discuss the area’s tie to the organized crime days of Al Capone and other mafiosos trafficking liquor made in the local moonshine stills. In the 1920s and 1930s, East Tennessee served as the mob’s primary hub for the forbidden liquor routes between Chicago, New York, and Miami.

The Capitol keeps its once-illegal speakeasy downstairs, a second venue available for smaller gatherings. Still located behind a secret passage where pulling the right book off the shelf, a bookcase releases from the wall to reveal a room more like a casino than theater with billiards, blackjack, poker tables, roulette, and a private bar.

With their love of history and deep family roots in the region, the husbands-to-be eagerly share the Capitol’s original magical history with guests through their art deco wedding theme.