COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

I have a Fourth of July story for you.

It’s about love, romance, fireworks (both kinds), patriotism, the war in Iraq, Corona del Mar, oh, and online dating, so we better get started, which brings us to Courtney Godett.

Courtney is an Orange County girl through and through who worked, until quite recently, as a corporate travel agent. A few years back, Courtney’s sister, Amanda, was looking for that special someone — that someone who just might be your soul mate, the perfect match, the person with whom you were placed on this earth to be with.

Courtney had a suggestion, a little less poetic, a little more cyberistic: eHarmony.com — the online dating service.

Amanda was a little skeptical at first, but both sisters signed up, signed on and began the cyber-search for suitable matches.

Since Courtney was along for the ride and mostly wanted to see how it all worked, she cast a wide net with no geographic limits and minimal requirements — basically, “must have pulse.”

Nothing much, or no one much, turned up, until one name caught her eye — Scott Mehaffey, a U.S. Navy aviator training as a flight officer in Pensacola, Fla.

Flight officers are very smart people who actually know how to use the 23 computers in jet fighters, which is very handy when you’re flying upside down at 565 miles an hour. Scott was an Army brat, a Marine brat to be more exact, born in North Carolina but then from a lot of places, typical for military life.

The Courtney/Scott cyber-exchange program started in January 2006, which led to some phone calls, which led to more phone calls, which led to their first up-close-and-personal encounter in Pensacola on Memorial Day 2006 — the start of a holiday theme in the relationship that continues to this day.

To wit, Scott popped the question on Christmas Day 2007 while visiting Courtney’s family here on the Left Coast. When all the gifts had been opened, Scott said he had one more for Courtney and asked her to marry him.

Showing great promise as an attorney if he decides to return to civilian life, Scott went over his flight plan with Courtney’s parents first to make sure no one spat out their eggnog when the big moment arrived.

Courtney didn’t need a lot of time to mull it over, fortunately, since Scott was shipping out on a seven-month all expenses-paid cruise on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman for combat operations in Iraq, which meant Courtney was now, to use a military term, the CWPIC (Chief Wedding Planner in Charge.)

Once the decision was made for getting hitched in Newport Beach right smack on the Fourth of July, plus the fact that Scott and his shipmates would be in their dress whites, that didn’t leave a lot of mystery about where the wedding should take place — Community Church Congregational in Corona del Mar.

Surely you’ve seen it, but if not, grab any encyclopedia and check the picture next to “charming little white church.” That’s the one.

That left the important matter of the reception. Let’s think this through. It’s a storybook wedding in Corona del Mar, awash in flowers and dress whites, and you’re looking for a really romantic venue for about 150 guests. And the answer is? Anyone?

Way too easy — Five Crowns, where else? How many people have measured the milestone moments in their lives at that remarkable place, from the day it opened in 1936 as “The Hurley Bell” to Five Crowns today, the jewel in Lawry’s crown. Way more than I can count.

And so, on Friday afternoon, the Fourth of July, at the Community Church in Corona del Mar, Scott and Courtney said the words just after 4 p.m. and then made their way, carefully, through the traditional arch of crossed-swords courtesy of Scott’s Navy buds in their crisp dress whites. Then it was on to Five Crowns for a first-cabin reception, with music and dancing, and who knows what all.

But here is what I have to know. There are those in Newport-Mesa, including certain columnists, who believe Five Crowns is haunted — most notably by the woman in white (hangs out downstairs, pretty much) and the man in black (prefers upstairs.) If ever the spirits of Five Crowns, and we’re not talking about singe-malt scotch, were going to drop in, so to speak, Friday night should have been it — big party, girls in pretty dresses, guys in dress whites clanking around with swords — it was the chance of a lifetime, or in this case, multiple lifetimes.

So if anyone was at Five Crowns Friday night, with or without Courtney and Scott’s wedding party, and you saw something that cannot be explained — other than how Tommy Martin can pick the perfect wine every time without your saying a word — let’s hear it.

Tradition is very important you know. Yo, ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].