The Proposal: Kelli asked me to marry her on the first day of the new millennium. She took me to Central Park—we were in the Shakespeare Garden near Belvedere Castle—and she did the getting-down-on-one-knee thing and gave me a diamond. Afterward, we went to Café des Artistes and had hot toddies and cried and were very moved by it.


The Location: It was the typical New York scramble. We started looking fourteen months in advance of our actual date and were pretty much priced out of Manhattan. Then, we were walking along Prospect Park one day and saw this beautiful building; it was the Ethical Culture Center. I did a little Internet research and it was like a dream come true. It was actually very affordable, given that it’s a historic landmark. Supposedly they have a ghost on the first floor—but we didn’t see it.


The Dress: Being a gay marriage, where you don’t have any forebears to influence you, you make it up yourself. I’d found this postcard that had a picture of this very princessy pink dress with a hoopskirt and I thought, You know what, I’m not a white gown kind of bride; I’m a pink person and I’m going to have my movie-star dress. So I brought the postcard to this dress shop in the East Village and said, “Movie star. Just do it up.”

The Moment: Kelli and I were holding hands, waiting to walk down the aisle and begin the ceremony. We were both trembling. I was gasping for air. Suddenly, I was hit by the momentousness of what we were doing. We’re literally stepping from one life stage into another. I guess I hadn’t been prepared for that wave of realization. It was very powerful and scary and exhilarating. I felt very bonded to Kelli at that moment. It was like, “You and me, kid. Here we go.”