It has been an exciting year! I offer a heartfelt congratulations to all of my brides and grooms. I have had the honor of marrying over 100 couples in 2010. Most of my weddings have been in New York City, but I have officiated ceremonies in the entire Tri-state area–from Connecticut to New Jersey to Westchester. And I have seen what feels like every inch of New York’s very “long” Long Island. As New York has become one of the most popular spots for Destination Weddings, I have been happy to serve brides and grooms from many American states (Ohio, California, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Texas, and Indiana, to name a few) as well as folks from England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Dubai, the Netherlands, and Scotland. I thank you all for sharing your special day with me and look forward to staying in touch.

The following slide show, prepared by my young colleague Noemie, includes photos of most of my couples. And, the couple at the beginning of this post is Rebekah and Matthew, a lovely bride and groom from Edmonton, Alberta. With the historic blizzard of the past week, they rearranged their simple flight to NYC, flying instead to Toronto and taking the “Maple Leaf” Amtrak down to the City. Their journey was over 30 hours in length. Meanwhile, their dedicated officiant (that would be me!), made her way from Budapest, Hungary to Prague, Czech Republic, to NYC’s Upper East Side. We had a lovely, sweet romantic ceremony on the Gapstow Bridge in Central Park. Many tourists stopped by to watch and savor the romance, on a sparkling winter’s day. So Congratulations, one and all. Peace and all good things in 2011!

As a Celebrant I strive to recognize the most important parts of the lives of brides and grooms into their personalized ceremonies. The narrative—an essay chronicling the relationship of the couple—is one of the hallmarks of a celebrant wedding, and it provides a wonderful opportunity to weave the threads of life into a wonderful, one-of-a-kind, compelling rendering of two people falling in love. When getting to know a couple, it is a delicious discovery of who they are that helps develop that perfect wedding.

I recently married a couple that offered some rich choices in writing. Maria and Paul came to me a few weeks ago, wanting to marry on St. Patrick’s day in Central Park, a favorite venue of last-minute unions. Paul, a dashing native of Belfast Northern Ireland, wanted to get married on this day, not only for its cultural significance, but because it was his beloved late grandfather’s birth date. The festivities of this important NYC holiday provided a unique backdrop for a celebration.

Maria, too, came with a fabulously interesting life story. A native Texan, she came to New York as a teenager, to train as a ballet dancer at The School of American Ballet, associated with the New York City Ballet. An international career in dance and a stint at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, were evident in her statuesque figure, grace, and elegance. Maria’s passion gave me an ideal chance to incorporate a favorite wedding passage by Anne Marrow Lindbergh. The reading compares the choreography of a happy marriage with the ease of dance:

“A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate, but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of the Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding.”

Congratulations to my splendid international couple! In the words of a recent pop tune, “I hope You’ll Dance……,” for the remainder of your days!

p.s. One of those quintessential NYC wedding moments took place when Paul, the groom, convinced a gifted “street musician” (a classical cellist) to re-locate from the Bethesda Fountain to the Bethesda Terrace, where we hosted the ceremony, and provide the wedding music (for a small donation, of course!). The celebration was enjoyed by all!

Several years ago, dreaded news was delivered to many American women when HBO announced that the groundbreaking program “Sex and the City” (SATC) would end production. In a retrospective of the show’s success, actress Sarah Jessica Parker and program creator Darren Star speculated about the elements that distinguished SATC from other series. They argued that beyond the witty repartee, it was the City of New York that partly explained the show’s enormous popularity. New York was, in fact, the fifth leading lady of the show, along with Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie. SATC devotees, like my pal Denise, know that Sex and the City shined a light on all that we love about the Big Apple, from famed landmarks to obscure local haunts. As a Celebrant, I have come to consider our heroine NYC as a most important backdrop—or guest, if you will—at destination weddings, large and small.

Lately I have been working with couples travelling to New York for their own special wedding ceremonies, casting iconic New York images as important elements of the wedding. Thanks to the generosity of Cheryl Fielding-LoPalo of Cheryl J. Weddings & Events, I was able to work with Matt and Sherri, a young couple from suburban Washington,D.C. Along with their closest family members, Sherri and Matt wed in Rockefeller Plaza. There is a sweet garden tucked in the middle of Manhattan—602 Loft & Garden, part of the famous “Top of the Rock.” This perfect wedding space is nestled in the bustling midtown area with a manicured garden, reflecting pool, and spectacular landscaping. And in every direction we were surrounded by breathtaking views of NYC’s cityscape. The photo in this posting is our stunning couple poised before St. Patrick’s Cathedral, one of New York’s most important religious institutions.

As I finished up this blog posting, I was on the Facebook page of my friend Christina Buzzetta who (lucky girl) works at TheKnot.com. I smiled when I noticed her profile picture caption was a famous line uttered by our friend Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City: “If you only get one great love, then New York may just be mine.” I think a lot of brides, in New York and beyond, feel just the same way.

Tt is a wonderful thing to live in New York, the home of so many immigrants. There is simply no other place in America where one can find such a variety of people representing virtually every continent and culture. So, a good number of the couples who I am fortunate to marry, come to the Big Apple after a significant personal voyage…literally.

Olga and Maxim had their own heroic journeys to their wedding day. Both born in the Russian Federation, they met here in Brooklyn some years ago. (I cannot help but digress as we have just passed the 20 year anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall. I am quite conscious of the fact that during the old days of the “Soviet Empire,” my couple would not have had the opportunity to come to the United States—a triumph of peace and diplomacy, indeed.) In many ways their courtship was typical with long walks and conversations, shared interest in music, and the connection to another homeland. They did, however, face challenges of intercontinental separation, jobs changes, and immigration policies, but one thing they knew is that they were meant to be together. A month or so ago, Olga approached me about performing a ceremony on the Brooklyn Bridge, a place of sentimental attachment to her. As a celebrant, I relish the opportunity to perform weddings in unusual venues. I am embarrassed to admit that I had never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, so what better opportunity to make the trek than officiating a wedding, mid-point?

The wedding, on Friday the 13th, coincided with an unusually strong Nor’easter, with rain and very cold blasts of wind. Despite the frigid temperatures, our bride wore a classic, contemporary (and strapless!) dress. Both the “maid of honor,” her sister, and the “best man” were Russian. So, as we approached the vows, I passed the baton to the groom’s dear friend, who recited the vows to the couple, in their mother tongue.

The ceremony was private, just the five of us, and the magnificence of the bridge was not lost on us. As I said in their ceremony, “There are few vistas that are more intimately connected with all of the wonder and hope and grandeur that is New York. This bridge embodies the possibility of human ingenuity, artistic vision, cooperation, and dedication—all elements of successful lives and marriages. Moreover, the bridge is a palpable reminder of connections and transitions, between your lives, your original homeland, your families, and your future. This day and place is a threshold whereby you are passing from two individuals who are deeply in love to become a married couple and a new family.”

And so it was. When performing weddings in public venues, such as this, I always feel as though I am offering a blessing to the passers-by. Who, after all, doesn’t love a wedding? On a cold blustery day, to see a young woman, in full wedding regalia, her sister in a long, beautiful red dress, two dapper young men, and a very cold celebrant engaging in one of the most significant transitional moments in life…..it doesn’t get better than that!