Danny & Jill
We were at Chelsea Pier’s Lighthouse on Saturday for the wedding of Daniel LaGattuta and Jill Rosenfeld. It was a wonderful thing.
Dan’s one of my oldest friends — we’ve known each other since junior high — and though we’ve tended to attend to schools on the other side of town since I.S. 25 — Stuyvesant for me and Bronx Science for Dan, Columbia and NYU — we’ve kept in touch. D&D and Diplomacy in a dimly remembered youth, the college trip to Germany and Austria, the standard urban distractions of movies and dinners later. I still can’t quite believe he’s married now and off to Africa for the honeymoon: if you know people a long time, there’s a fixed mental image that takes years to shake.
Jill, I haven’t known you nearly as long as I’ve known Danny, but you’re cool — you know Aramaic — and somehow utterly appropriate for Dan. I’m glad you’re both happy.
The videographer for the wedding had random guests tape a message for the couple. I don’t remember what I said, but it’s probably similar to what I just wrote.
The whole of Saturday had a slightly unworldly air that came from getting up early for the photos, the giant windows of the Lighthouse overlooking the Hudson and its weekend traffic of kayaks, fireboats and DEP garbage scows, and the singularity of the day’s events. But the rented tuxedoes fit, the shoes weren’t uncomfortable, and the photographer didn’t have us do weird things in unpleasant weather. Plus, I saw a few people I hadn’t seen in years and years: Chris who was with us on the D&D and Diplomacy and is now in L.A., Diana, who went to Stuy also, and is now in Boston.
The ceremony had some minor hitches with the unity candle being continuously blown out by the draft from the AC, until it was moved to someplace on the floor. There was some concern that the candle would set the tablecloth on fire, but it was moved out of the way.
I danced with Grace at the reception. Badly and briefly — I need lessons. Dan and Jill were shockingly good, or at least seemed that way to my untrained eyes. Jill’s parents and a number of Jill’s parents’ friends were even more shockingly good. My theory is that it comes from living through disco.
Anyway, here are some pictures from the pre-wedding preparations, the reception, and the brunch the next day at the Yale Club near Grand Central. These weren’t from a digital camera; they’re from my works-without-electricity Nikon, with a fast 50mm/f1.4 lens (why oh why did I even harbor the thought that a point-and-shoot digital would replace my Nikon for any real picture taking?). The local photo development shop put the photos on CDs — I was surprised the files were only about 2 megapixels — and I worked from there.
