Mike & Melissa | Grand Central Terminal Elopement

I liked Melissa from the moment we connected. She was vivacious, funny, irreverent, and also very anxious and on the fence about this whole elopement thing. She had been following us for years…literally YEARS. She knew she wanted to elope. She found the one, and they had already been together for 10 years and had a spunky blended family.

And they were finalizing a big kitchen remodel…And Melissa was on a 6-week maintenance chemo schedule.

There was always something else that took precedence and center stage….I get it; my mom gets chemo every month, and some months, if the medicine goes in too quickly, she will be sick for weeks. It is so hard to predict life when you are in these situations. But she kept coming back around and checking in. And I answered all the questions that came up for her about blizzards and her kiddos getting sick and having to reschedule.  I KNEW how badly she wanted this. And how she was trying to make time for it. At each bend, we connected briefly, and she shared her struggles, and I showed support and empathy as best as I could.

So much focus was on LIFE and all it’s business and complications…. this was not the couple that had a clean slate and 6 months to plan an elopement. This was a couple living their big messy life. But with each check-in I could feel her starting to develop that confidence and that excitement and I told her I’d be waiting when she was ready and that she deserved this day more than ANYONE because of all that she was balancing. 

Well, that day came the week after Christmas. Melissa and Mike went for it. She realized that this wedding was not going to plan itself and nothing would happen if she didn’t commit to herself and to this step that she and Mike wanted to take together in their relationship.

Because of all the hurdles she faced, her wedding turned out even more awesome than we could have ever expected. They are huge pizza nerds like me. So we stopped for a slice in a picturesque slice shop in midtown. We noticed the shop had a roll-down gate, and there were precisely five stools lining the counter facing the street. So even though it was the middle of winter, I asked the manager if he could roll up the gate so I could get some shots.

Bingo! He did! Coolest wedding photo/family photo (and they say NY-ers aren’t nice…hmph)

I kept hearing the kids talk about creme brûlée. So I quickly searched French restaurants and found one with RAVE reviews in the theater district. We took a chance and headed there to see what the maitre d could do for us….With a wink and a nod and a promise that we would be out of there before the 6pm reservation, they immediately seated us, and five servings of creme brûlée, two champagnes, and three coca-colas quickly appeared.

Seeing Melissa and Mike through this life journey was an honor! And what a freaking fun wedding day they had….the universe aligned.