Blog Posts by Subject: Weddings

"When is the best time of year to buy a diamond?"

This question was recently posed to the ASK NYPL virtual reference service of The New York Public Library. First, if you're looking for a diamond whose size is a half carat or larger, make sure your jeweler offers you a grading report from one of the reputable diamond-grading labs below. To properly evaluate these reports, you must understand the four "C's" of diamonds: carat weight, cut, color and clarity.

Remember, marriage equality passed in New York last night because of 40 years of political activism. Pictured above is GAA's Jim Owles with "Gay Power to Gay Lovers" wedding cake at the Gay Activist Alliance's zap of the New York City Clerk for marriage equality in 1971. CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I'm getting married next week, and if you, like me, are planning a wedding and wondering why you didn't just go to city hall, you should know that there are a wealth of resources at the New York Public Library. Whether you are trying to be thrifty, crafty, design your own flowers, or pick a location, you can find ideas at the library, and you won't have to pay a wedding planner for them.

Being a librarian, it's not surprising when I say that I'm surrounded by stories. But in reality, we are all surrounded by stories, every day. This was never more apparent to me than when I officiated a friend's wedding. She asked that I include a reading from a children's book, and while neither she nor her fiancé had any particular connection to children's literature, we created a whole ceremony around the power of story.

I can't be the only person excited for the wedding of William Windsor to Catherine Middleton. In fact, I know I'm not. Out there, in that big, bad world of cynics, there are plenty of people just as psyched as me about the upcoming royal nuptials—they are just too cool to show it. This wedding brings me full circle. I remember being 9 years old and staying up all night with my Mom to watch Princess Diana marry Prince Charles, I had a slumber party to watch Sarah Ferguson marry Prince Andrew (where an adorable 3 year old Prince William got all squirmy in his wedding outfit (see below) and finally, I remember being in 

In November 1882, Emeline Hopkins Cornell wore a stunning custom-made wedding dress to marry Herman Livingston in Catskill, NY. The white satin gown trimmed with point lace was largely copied from European designs and featured orange blossoms, a bustle, and a fitted waist. After the wedding, the young bride moved across the Hudson River to the Livingston ancestral home at Oak Hill where the dress was packed away in the attic to join the generations of Livingston family paraphernalia. There the dress resided until the early 21st Century, when the house had to be sold and tough decisions about its contents — what to keep and what to sell — had to be made.

A few weeks ago I was invited to a bridal shower, and by the time I got around to looking up the registry almost everything had already been fulfilled. I don't love registries anyway, and because I'm a librarian I figured I can always get away with giving people books for any and every occasion. Right? I thought a nice cookbook would be the perfect gift, and then remembered I had already done this a few years ago, giving another friend an aphrodisiac cookbook for her bridal shower. I was so proud of myself, because usually showers beget either sexy gifts like lingerie, or practical gifts like food processors. I had thought of a gift that was both sexy and 

While some married couples uphold the tradition of freezing the remaining pieces of their wedding cake (often the very top tier or the slice the bride and groom fed to each other during the reception) to be enjoyed again on the celebration of the first wedding anniversary; it didn’t quite go that way in my home. In fact, I made room for it right in my fridge, and my husband and I continued to carve away at for just about a week until we were thoroughly weary of it. As we mark our third anniversary this week, we’ve been reminiscing about the sinful goodness of our hazelnut crème-filled cake with espresso-flavored icing from that late summer evening.