Congratulations Marc and Linda

Marc and Linda take the plunge!

My good friends Marc and Linda got married this past Saturday in a beautiful ceremony at Grand Central Terminal, on the Eastern Terrace, with throngs of passersby watching, and about hundred close friends and family dressed up enjoying the day.

Corrie and I had been as involved as Marc and Linda needed over the past few months, giving advice on decorations, printed material, Corrie helping with Linda's fittings, which all sounds like we did a lot of work, when, truth be told, Marc and Linda did pretty much everything. We served as a board off of which to bounce ideas. We did print out some large scale seating charts; we have the printing apparatus and charged nothing, so that made sense.

I was told that I'd be given a digital camcorder to film the ceremony, as sort of a backup filmer to the real documentarian, while Corrie was given a nice camera to act in a similar role to the hired photographer. Corrie went around taking her beautiful, artsy-fartsy candid shots, and I hope I'll be able to see some of them.

I was thinking that if I had more time I would have liked to set up shots like de Palma. I talked with the other gentleman about where he was setting his tripod up, where I should be, more roving and floating, or whatever, when Corrie said I should go back to the room and follow the girls out. Brilliant, I thought.

I perched outside the room the girls came out of, escorted by some of Marc's fellas, and eventually a beautiful looking Linda and her father emerged, and I got lined up behind them. The Bride's Waltz (is that the name of the "Here Comes the Bride" organ notes?) began, and Linda and Peter started off, while I came behind slowly, avoiding Linda's train, feeling emotional, when they reached the head of the stairs, and began to turn left to descend to the "altar," when it happened.

When they got to the head of the stairs and began to turn, I was still behind them, when I heard a round of applause that blew me away. The ovation sounded far too big to be from the family, I thought, so I hurried over to the top of the stairs, jostling the camera. From the top of the stairs looking out over the floor at GCT I could see maybe five hundred, maybe a thousand, people all standing and staring up at us, applauding and taking pictures, having no idea who's getting married, just happy to be witnessing it. It was spontaneous and beautiful and unplanned. It was one of those moments. Later on, Marc would say that when he heard the organ playing Linda in, he wasn't sure he was going to make it, not sure if he'd be able to control the waterworks. But when Linda appeared at the top of the stairs, and the crowd behind him erupted, he loosened up, realizing how much fun this was going to be, and no troubles.

The ceremony was quick, administered and written by our friend Sam, who picked up his license over the Internet a few weeks ago. Besides battling with the intermittent train announcement voice-overs, it went off without a hitch, and the voice-overs weren't even a hitch, since they were a known commodity. After eating the nice buffet style dinner of salmon or pork loin cooked by the peeps from Metrazur, the fancy restaurant who's space we were occupying, we left for the after-dinner cocktail hour on the roof of the Roosevelt Hotel on 45th and Madison, in the Mad46 rooftop bar.

Corrie and I were in the last group to leave, around 2:30 in the morning, and had been considering getting a hotel room nearby, but eventually decided to go with the thirty-dollar cab ride home instead of a hundred-dollar hotel room. Being poor has its finer points.

All in all, it was a beautiful ceremony, beautiful day and night, and I hope the newlyweds only the best for the rest of their lives. Thank you for trusting me with some responsibility.

I love you guys.