Old prison from ‘Shawshank’ popular for weddings

Associated Press

MANSFIELD, Ohio

Here’s one that invites wisecracks from weary spouses inclined to joke that marriage is a kind of incarceration: the old, imposing prison in Ohio where the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” was filmed has become a hot spot for weddings and hosts an annual bridal show.

“When people ask me, ‘Why would anyone want to get married in a prison?’ I tell them to come here and check it out. You’ve got to see it to believe it,” said Susan Nirode, operations manager for the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society.

Nirode told the Mansfield News Journal that what was once known as the Ohio State Reformatory is all booked up for weddings through the end of 2012 and has begun taking reservations for 2013.

“On the inside, the central guard room is just beautiful,” she noted. The room, about the size of a basketball court and sporting a 25-foot-high ceiling, was used as the prison cafeteria in “Shawshank,” the popular 1994 movie starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

In its fifth year, the bridal show — “Glamour in the Slammer” — recently drew nearly 40 vendors and 500 spectators to the reformatory, which closed in 1990 after playing host to more than 155,000 inmates over the span of 94 years.