Headlining Yahoo.com this morning was this initially touching story about volunteers and donors giving a lovestruck homeless couple a nice ceremony, replete with flowers, cake, rings and the obligatory tuxedo and gown.

An excerpt reads as follows:

"During his 14 years living homeless on the streets of Washington, Dante White, 28, never realized that so much opulence existed. Nor had he had much luck in love in his life, having been thrown out of his mother's home when he was just 14.

Last week, White married Nhiahni Chestnut, 39, a woman whose battles with drugs and alcohol had left her on the streets of the US capital as well. Both are unemployed.

"I was basically living from day to day, trying to survive, and I wound up meeting him," Chestnut told AFP at the couple's wedding, held in the tiny chapel of Grace Episcopal Church in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood.

"Something clicked, the chemistry was there," said the bride, dressed in a flowing white ensemble with a pink flower.

"We've been together ever since. That was nine years ago. He was outside. It kind of clicked because we were in kind of the same situation. We started hanging out with each other, talking," she said.

The two also frequented a Bible study and meal program run by Grace Episcopal Church on Saturdays. It was there, a few months ago, that White, 28, revealed to a parishioner how much he wished he could afford to marry the woman who had brought light into his life on the streets.

"Everyone at the church feels strongly that you don't need to have money to get married," said Margaret Davis.

"In good Grace church congregation fashion, everyone got behind the idea: one person managed flowers, I helped with the wedding rings, one woman made the cake, someone helped with the tux and someone else with the bride's gown," she said.

Another churchgoer paid for a two-night honeymoon stay at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel across the Potomac River in Virginia."

So far so good, it's a sweet story.  The problem is it also an example of the fantasyland people are still living in.  The story continues:

"After the service, the bride and groom posed for photos and, in the church annex where they gather on Saturdays for Bible study and a meal, they fed each other slices of chocolate layer cake.

Cameras clicked and whirred, and as two of Washington's best jazz musicians played a smoochy version of "Take the A-train," the couple had their first dance.

"This is beyond my wildest dreams. This is exactly how I wanted my wedding to be," said the bride.

The couple's break from the streets, however, will be brief.

Soon, their dream wedding and honeymoon will be just a memory as they face the very real battle to survive on the mean streets of Washington, where White says: "You have to sleep with one eye open."

The efforts and kindness on display by this congregation is laudable, but did any of them stop for one second to consider whether their collective resources could have been better spent on setting the couple up in an apartment?  Maybe supplying some food?  Drug and alcohol counseling?

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. White.  I only wish the bride could have been carried over the thresshold, rather than over a sewer grate.