A bulletproof glass window separated the couple. In lieu of a best man, a jailer stood at the groom's side.

But prison bars did not stop Kimberly Pombrio from showing up at the Wake County Magistrate's Office on Friday afternoon to marry Timothy Randal Atwater, who was convicted this month of violating his probation. Atwater, 45, has been sitting in jail for more than 30 days, waiting to be shipped to a state prison where he will spend the next 15 months.

"It's sad. You make a mistake, you got to pay for it," Pombrio said Friday after the brief ceremony. "He's the man I want to spend the rest of my life with."

The couple met a little more than two years ago through a mutual acquaintance during a church cookout near Cameron Village.

"It was love at first sight," she said, brushing her long, curly brown hair away from her face and smiling at the memory.

Months later, the couple had a child. Timothy Atwater Jr., 14 months, sat quietly in a stroller, cooing at his daddy during Friday's ceremony.

But not even love and a newborn son could do what a little jail time did: convince Timothy Atwater that he should marry.

On Sept. 15, probation officers with the state Department of Correction put Atwater in jail for violating the terms of his probation after he was arrested for driving with a revoked license.

When police caught up with him Sept. 9, they charged him with felony speeding to elude arrest, resisting arrest, larceny, driving with a fictitious license tag and having an expired registration sticker.

Pombrio said the last 30 days in jail cleared Atwater's head.

"It let him know he needed to be a husband and a father," she said. "Sometimes jail can turn some people around."

Pombrio pushed Timothy Jr.'s stroller into the magistrate's office. She stood in front of Tonya Jordan, the presiding magistrate. On the other side of a glass partition about 12 feet away, looking as gallant as any groom could while clad in an orange jailhouse jumpsuit, stood Atwater, smiling brighter than a 250-watt bulb at his bride.

Jordan asked the bride and groom the usual question and they both replied, with big smiles, "I do."

The attending jailers turned wedding guests clapped. Jordan smiled at the couple and then asked, "And we have no rings, right?"

Atwater wasn't worried about rings. He had another request for the magistrate on this, his wedding day.

"Ma'am," he said to the magistrate. "I want you to look deep, deep in your heart. I mean, I can't get no kiss. Can I least have a cigarette?"

Jordan denied his request. Jailers led Atwater away to resume his sentence and start his life as a married man.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.