February 14, 2009

In 2009 a lot of my friends got married. The first couple, Jessie and Nat, made a bit of history doing it. On Valentines Day of that year, as one of the winning couples in a Brides magazine contest, they became the first same-sex couple to get married on top of the Empire State Building. If you've somehow kept up with all of my blogs you may realize that I've written about it before.

I wasn't at the ceremony itself, because of the severe space limitations with having ceremonies for fourteen couples on the same morning, and we were not nearly as close then as we would become. I was a coworker that never worked directly with Jessie, a drinker at the happy hours, and an occasional kickball teammate. I remember watching the live stream from my computer that morning, though, which I was glad to have because I got most of my tearing up out of the way in private, and was generally able to keep it together when they showed it at the reception.

When Jessie talks about this reception she likes to say that I crashed. The way I remember it, it was more like I invited myself, and then somehow got into the middle of this picture. I'm really, really glad I did that self-inviting, because that afternoon in DUMBO was a great time, and they ended up being great friends of mine, as you'll no doubt see in some upcoming photos.