Married on Sept 11th, 2009

On Friday September 11th, 2009, Stu and I went down to City Hall (actually now the City Clerk's Office) with Stu's parents and a group or our closest friends (mostly our NYC wedding party). We had no idea that it would turn out to be such a beautiful and sentimental experience. It seemed pretty empty for a Friday but we attributed that to the first day of rain. At first, we got in line to get our "number". It was amusing to be in line in the dress that I was supposed to be wearing in our Hawaiian ceremony waiting to "take a numba".

While waiting for our number to be called we took advantage of the AWESOME City Hall backdrop they painted. Our number was called, we signed our papers, paid fees and went to another line. Within a few minutes, we were in Chapel A (the purple one on the left) and the 12 of us piled in. Our minister was really quite sweet. She took her job seriously and some of us swear that we thought she might even cry herself. The ceremony was perfectly succinct and regardless of it's briefness I managed to cry my heart out. After all, It Has Been My Dream To Marry Stu Brooks!!

But about getting married on September 11th, in New York... Both Stu and I were here in 2001. I was on the F train when the 2nd plane hit on my way into work. We could see it from the train. Stu was still sleeping but had a rehearsal a few blocks from ground zero at 11am...it never happened. Of course, we'll never forget what happened on that day. On the morning of 9/11/2009, the day we were going to get married, we watched some of the memorial service on CNN. I couldn't hold back the tears. It seems that the further away 9/11 gets the more emotions seem to come out and here I was crying from sadness on the happiest day of my life. But it didn't get me down knowing that we were about to be wed on a day of such tragedy. It brought light to a day I normally associate with sadness. I'm proud to be married on this day. And when we went to Starbuck's (of course we did) right after our ceremony, a couple of firemen were touched by the fact that we chose to be married on this day. As the saying goes, "we will never forget", and yes, We Will Never Forget, not only because of tragedy, not only because it's our best friend's birthday but also because it is the day we specifically chose to make our proclamation of love legal.

Now let's celebrate together on January 31st, 2010!

www.stuandjanice2010.com