vip in the city

Hear ye, hear ye

Last night’s nasty weather continued and worsened into this morning, making my trip out to Long Island a very messy one indeed. If rain on your wedding day is supposed to be lucky — or is that… ironic? — NI will be blessed with enough fortune for a lifetime.

The Coral House on Milburn Lake was just a five minute drive from the Baldwin station off the LIRR — actually a walkable distance if it weren’t thunderstorming and I were not wearing a cocktail dress and heels. My taxi driver, upon being given the destination, told me that he had been married at the very same venue, three decades earlier. He said it was the best day of his life.  Awww!

The wet weather did cause some last-minute scrambling: the ceremony, which had been slated for outdoors, was moved inside to a room with views of the duck-filled lake instead. As we waited for the ceremony to begin — I learned later that the limo with the bridal party had gotten lost en route to the venue — a playlist of love songs was piped in through the speakers… a rotation of hits that seemed to have remained unchanged since the early 1990s, including Extreme’s “More Than Words,” Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting,” and Bryan Adams’s “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.”

Shy flower girls:

Though the weather outside was frightful, it turned out to be a lovely afternoon, if not exactly what I expected. At one point during the vows, NI’s voice began to quaver, setting off a chain reaction of sentimental tearing, beginning with the groom. That gets me every time. Just as I felt my own eyes start to well, a cell phone went off loudly in my row, breaking the mood. D’oh! For a nanosecond, I panicked at the thought that I was to blame — I’m positively OCD about silencing the ringer during such moments — but soon it became apparent that the source was the purse of the woman seated directly to my right. One of those obnoxious, jangly tunes, too… not that the ringtone makes much of a difference in the middle of a marriage ceremony. Several indignant heads swiveled in our direction. Only honor kept me from pointing out the true culprit. (Her crimson cheeks and mad fumbling told the true story anyway — all of which was caught on video.)

Much food, and even more dancing followed. Is “The Cha-Cha Slide” the “Macarena” of the 00’s?

By late afternoon, the skies had cleared for brilliant sunshine, and buoyed by champagne bubbles, I was encouraged to venture the walk back to the railroad station to catch the train back to NYC, heels or no.