After their wedding reception, Alex and Walker Sojourner departed into the dark night in a Batmobile, ready to take on the world!
Amid all of the Batman maxims and paraphernalia, the universally recognized favorite symbol of the superhero is the sporty Batmobile. Alex and Walker Sojourner decided their wedding getaway vehicle would not be the traditional limousine or historic auto — after all, Alex’s father had a Batmobile.
Lane Latham, dermatologist and state air surgeon at McEntire Joint National Guard Base, turned his fascination with movie props into a unique hobby. He knew nothing about building a car, but he figured it out. Plus, he says that on “bat nights,” plenty of great Sumter folks, including his friend and mechanic Bruce Pate, showed up to offer input and advice while he tinkered. He first transformed a 1973 Lincoln Continental into a Batmobile. Then, he immediately went to work altering a 1993 Capri station wagon so that it became a more souped up Batmobile. Although he says he is still nuancing the latter Batmobile, he pulled it out of the paint shop just in time to be used as the getaway car for his daughter’s wedding.
After a traditional reception at Forest Lake Club, Alex changed from her wedding dress into a white jumpsuit, donned one of the red party favor masks, and “crawled” with her new husband, Walker, into her family’s Batmobile.
“Before they left, they shot off the fake bullets and the fire,” says Julianne Sojourner, the groom’s mother. “It was quite a show!”
Julianne says it was a thrill for Walker to be able to drive the car alongside Alex from the reception venue. “When he was a toddler, he constantly wore a Batman costume I made. Driving off in a Batmobile was fun for both of them.”
“As a dad, I wanted to be able to do something special and fun,” says Lane. “I’m the geeky dad with the nerdy hobby, but Alex wanted to do this, and I thought it was awesome.”
