Our wedding day, before the ceremony

Everything seemed to come together. Eventually.

The day started like most mornings. Get up. Take a shower. Get dressed uh... hmmm... Jason neglected to pack his underwear. Some shopping was in order. We finished getting ready and headed out for breakfast. We ate at a corner diner and watched the tourists stumble around.

After a quick purchase of underwear, we walked over to Sheri's hairdresser. We were early so had some time to kill. Sitting on the granite ledge around Gramercy Park we talked about the weather and how everything seemed to be fitting into place.

11am rolled around and Sheri walked off to her hair appointment. Jason strolled back to the hotel to wait for Brian to arrive on the train. (Brian is also known as our Reverend-- really he's a very close friend who agreed to get ordained online and registered with the City of New York so that he could marry us.)  He walked through a street closed for foods and crafts. The smells of roasted chicken, sausage, coffee, and cookies were overpowering.

Back at the hotel, the concierge called. It was Brian pretending to be the front desk but Jason saw through the ruse. Brian arrived up at the room sweating like an animal. Did we mention the weather was unusually hot? We were waiting for Brian's hotel to have a room ready for him when Misa & Kelly called.

Misa & Kelly were staying in the same hotel as us. They arrived and brought their luggage up to our room until their room was ready. It was now 12:30 and Jason was getting stressed. Steve and Shelia had called and asked if the La Quinta was checking in people early. Jason had no idea. We weren't even staying at that hotel! Brian needed to check in to the La Qunita. Sheri wasn't answering her phone and we needed to meet the photographer at 2pm in Central Park. Oh yes, the street in front of the La Quinta was closed for a Korean Festival too. So all our guests (including Jason's family) were going to have a hell of a time figuring out where to unload their cars and park. Point of this paragraph: Jason was freaking out at this point.

Leaving Misa and Kelly at the hotel, Brian and Jason walked over to the La Quinta to see if Brian could check in.  While at the concierge desk Sheri called Jason. She calmed him down. Brian got checked in and ran into Steve and Shelia in the lobby.

Jason headed back to our hotel to get ready for the wedding. Sheri arrived with her beautifully done up hair. We got all suited up for the wedding and left on time to meet the photographer.

The cab ride to Central Park was easy and neither one of us sat in anything dirty or sticky. Peter Doyle, the photographer, was ready for us when we arrived. After 20 minutes we had loosened up and were smiling. As we walked around the park there were lots of smiles, nods and even a few other wedding parties.

The photographs ended about 30 minutes before the ceremony because Peter wanted to check out the ceremony location and get his equipment ready. So we sat on a park bench and enjoyed the day. We got lots of smiles and "congratulations" from locals and tourist from all over the world. Where else but NYC is it normal to see a bride and groom sitting on a bench in the middle of a park?

We had 30 minutes to wait and get nervous.