Dear Universe,

Is this all there is?

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Very, very/ Extra Ordinary

Tonight I went to the most romantic New York wedding I've ever been to.

This is easy to say, since I have not been to any other weddings in Manhattan. But for real -- it was like an answer to a challenge -- you want me to bring the romance? I'll BRING the romance. And the romance was brought.

The first of a three-part, tri-city celebration spanning the U.S., continental Europe, and the Pacific islands, it was elegant and intimate: a sweet jazz quintet played and sang standards in a small room of an upscale Upper East Side hotel, where even the waitstaff seemed genuinely cheerful, caught up in the mood. No flowers, except for a spring mix of lilacs and greenery on the piano, where the bride and groom, both in their mid- to late thirties, signed their marriage license and read each other poems they had selected for the occasion. The groom's voice trembled and broke as he read the paean to his bride; the bride, like her selection, was less openly sentimental, bringing a touch of gentle humor to the ceremony. (Which is, I regret to admit is my opinion, often a soppy mess of a tradition.)

I'm less romantic than I used to be, less prone to tears at emotional moments, and instead, I also regret to admit, much more prone to rolling my eyes at weddings these days. I went through a half-roll of the eyes tonight before recalling that it wasn't polite. But about an hour after that, I was standing with my back against the bar, looking around the room at the well-heeled crowd, listening to the pianist/singer croon softly, and for that minute and a number of minutes after, I felt like I was in the New York of my more romantically inclined youth. Infinitely harder to get to, that New York, but definitely still there.
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