A Little Praise...
From the desk of: Katie, past Bride
June 25, 2006 – almost 14 years ago, my husband, Mitchel and I were married at the Harvard Club in Boston. Apparently, I have a fairy godmother, because what started out as a torrentially rainy weekend, just an hour before our ceremony, the sun showed her glorious rays and dried up the sidewalks on Commonwealth Avenue. Our guests arrived at the Harvard Club with dry feet, perhaps slightly frizzy hair from the humidity, ready to celebrate…
April 12, 2020 – like everyone else, I am stuck inside, trying to juggle online learning for our 10 year old daughter, “urgent” work deadlines, and the anxiety of my husband going to the hospital twice a week to care for his patients. Wanting to somehow differentiate the weekend from the weekdays, I’ve started taking on projects that I always said I would – and not just those open bottles of wine and vodka. This morning, it was my wedding photos. Yes, I’ll confess that even after 13 years, I still haven’t made an album. New jobs, new houses, new child, old parents, well, life will take away all the free time you thought you would have!
As I looked at the glossy images of my younger (less wrinkled) self, it brought me back to that day in June. And to the person who brought all of the details together – Christine Altieri. My husband found Altieri Events (now A&E Events) and decided we needed a wedding planner; we needed Christine. I insisted I did not need a wedding planner. Really, I could do it all myself.
Beyond coordinating all of the details, making everything look effortless, helping manage all of the “cool ideas” from family members, the greatest thing Christine provided us was time. Time to enjoy cake and dinner tastings, time to register for all of those gifts we thought were practical, time to have cocktails with friends, time to just be a couple without the pressure of making the 1,297 decisions that go into a wedding. And aside from my sister sobbing through the entire ceremony (she clearly could not handle her pre-wedding martini), every moment felt like me and Mitch – as if we had planned it all ourselves.
Over the years, I’ve tried to get Christine to tell me about what went wrong at our wedding – clearly they’ve gone into her vault, preserving our memories of that perfect day. One thing we did finally get out of her was that we got married on her birthday. Just another excuse to call her every year on June 25!
As our life takes on a new, strange, pace with the COVID-19 virus, I hope Christine knows that we are thinking of her – and treasure all she did to make our wedding weekend special. More than that, we consider ourselves infinitely lucky to call her a friend. We are a family that is home, healthy, safe –perhaps a bit bored and stressed – together, thanks to Christine getting us down the aisle on that Sunday in June.
With love,
Katie, Mitch and DiDi Sklar