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Kim and Jim took the days before
their September 15 wedding off from work. They planned to run
last-minute errands, check in with their vendors, and savor the
delicious anticipation of the upcoming event. On the morning of
September 11, four days before the wedding, the two were watching
the morning news when the scene of destruction occurring just
downtown unfolded horribly before them. After two days of panic,
fear, and frantic calls to the couple's many friends who work in the
financial district of Manhattan, the two realized that they had
suffered an unspeakable loss. James "Jimmy" Straine Jr., a friend of
Jim's for 17 years, an employee of Cantor Fitzgerald, and a
groomsman in the upcoming wedding, was among those
missing.
 While dealing with their grief, the couple needed to deal
with another issue. The wedding was in two days, and they had a
decision to make: Could they, and should they, go forward with their
plans to tie the knot?
THE BRIDE Kimberly Magioncalda,
24, an employee at Credit Suisse First Boston in the Equity Capital
Markets Group
THE GROOM James O'Hoppe, 36, managing
director at 360 Networks
THE DATE September 15,
2001
THE SCENE Ceremony at St. Thomas More Church;
reception at The Mark hotel; both on Manhattan's Upper East
Side
HOW THEY MET Kim, fresh from college, was working
at the Ralph Lauren store in a mansion on 72nd Street and Madison
Avenue. Jim stopped in to buy a tuxedo, and Kim helped him out. "We
talked for almost an hour," laughs Kim, "about almost everything but
that tuxedo." In fact, Jim left the store with only a tuxedo shirt.
But what he also left with was Kim's phone number.
THE
PROPOSAL Just over one year after their first date, Jim invited
Kim along to a cocktail party that didn't actually exist. He had, in
fact, stopped in at the Ralph Lauren boutique where the two had had
their first fateful meeting, and asked for the staff's help in
planning a marriage proposal. On the way to the "cocktail party,"
Jim lured Kim into the store by claiming that they were running
early and that he needed a pair of loafers, anyway. As they walked
past the manager, Jim secretly handed off the ring in its blue
Tiffany box. After pretending to admire a few pairs of shoes in the
nearly empty store, Jim announced it was time to go and walked past
the estate jewelry counter. "Look, Kim," he pointed out, "look at
that engagement ring in the jewelry display." Kim admired the lovely
ring, and Jim asked the manager why it was there. The manager,
answering Jim's question, explained that the ring was for "a very
special couple, named Kim and Jim, who had met in the store about
one year ago." Then Jim took the very surprised and delighted Kim
over to a quiet corner chair, got down on one knee, and proposed
marriage. Kim exclaimed an enthusiastic "yes!" and the couple turned
to see the staircase behind them lined with women who worked in the
store, all happily sniffling. The couple next headed for the rooftop
of the Peninsula, where they shared a champagne toast with the
parents of the bride-to-be.
THE PLANNING "A New York
city wedding is a lot to plan," comments Kim. The couple had almost
eighteen months to get things done, but they were astonished from
the beginning to find many vendors already booked for their chosen
date. Fortunately, they fell in love with The Mark's lovely,
intimate ballroom and were relieved to find the setting available.
"We had fun doing the planning together," explains Kim, "and Jim was
a very involved groom," helping out with pretty much everything
except Kim's dress.
CHOOSING TO GO ON The tragedy of
September 11 effected Kim and Jim in a very personal way. "We had
many, many friends who were at the scene of the tragedy and who did
get out safely," says Kim. But the hardest thing to bear was the
loss of groomsman Jimmy Straine. The bride and groom were torn
between sadness and a desire to not let the tragedy ruin their
plans. "Everyone said to us, 'You can't let anything come between
the love you have for each other,'" says Jim. "Our families were
very supportive from the beginning of any decision that was made."
The couple, at a terrible conflux of despair and joy and
still numb from the shock of what had occurred in their city, simply
felt at a loss. Kim wondered if they waited, would things only get
worse? Would it be years before they could re-schedule their
wedding? And, most painful of all, could they feel happiness so soon
after the loss of a friend? Then Jimmy's brother Mike called. "He
said we had his support and the support of the entire Straine
family, no matter what we decided to do," says Jim. "He said, 'I
can't imagine what you and Kim are going through.' He just lost his
brother, and he is thinking about us. That says so much about
Jimmy's family and what they are like." The two chose to keep their
wedding date. Later, Jimmy's younger brother called and expressed
how glad he was that plans for the wedding were on. "That last phone
call cleared up any doubt we might have had that we had made the
right choice," says Jim. The two headed into their wedding day
knowing that they would be happy and hoping that their guests could,
too.
THE CEREMONY To her surprise, Kim was not the
least bit nervous as she started down the aisle at St. Thomas More
Church on the afternoon of September 15. "Terrorists had attacked
our city," she says, "and so I was not going to get nervous about
marrying the man I love." Kim walked down the aisle with only three
of her five bridesmaids, because two were unable to fly to New York.
Jim, of course, was missing a groomsman in more ways than
one.
The ceremony was a traditional Catholic service. The
couple and priest Father John Boehning had decided to honor Jimmy
Straine, and all of the other victims of the terrorist attacks, with
a prayer that fell during the normal service. "We didn't want to
start or end the ceremony on a sad note," points out Kim, "but we
very much wanted to acknowledge our loss and the loss that everyone
was sharing."
In the receiving line after the ceremony, the
couple was surprised to see the familiar faces of people they knew
only as acquaintances -- neighbors with whom they had exchanged only
brief greetings over the years. "Like most New Yorkers, we didn't
really know the people who lived in our building," says Kim. "But we
had told one person about the ceremony, and word got around. Several
couples came to show their support of us."
THE PHOTOS
After the service, photographer Jinsey Dauk took the wedding party
to some of Manhattan's great spots to shoot photos. Jinsey had also
lost several friends and acquaintances in the attacks, and she found
that it was a relief to step away from her sadness and enjoy the
couple's happiness. "My job is be supportive of these guys, whatever
they decide," says Jinsey, who had worried that it would be
impossible to gain access to her downtown apartment, now off-limits,
to retrieve her cameras and equipment. The wedding party stopped
outside the Ralph Lauren mansion for a photo, of course. They also
took pictures on the steps at the Met, and along the island on Park
Avenue. Wherever they went, New Yorkers reacted with joy at the
sight of a bride and groom. Old ladies hugged them, cabbies cheered,
and passersby applauded. "I think everyone was just so glad to see
something that was happy," guesses Kim.
THE
CELEBRATION At the swank Mark Hotel, guests dined on hors
d'oeuvres and then moved into the main room to dine on an appetizer
of ravioli in a porcini cream sauce, a frisee salad with goat cheese
and peppers, and an entree of filet mignon. There was no seating
plan. "I had worked on the seating plan," says Kim. But because
flights had been cancelled and planes were grounded, only 78 of the
110 confirmed guests could attend, and the plan seemed superfluous.
But the place felt full and the crowd was more upbeat than the
couple had dared hope. "Everyone had been glued to the television
for four days," says Kim, "and I think this chance to dress up, come
out, and celebrate was just what we all needed. It got crazy," she
laughs, "people had napkins on their heads. The men tossed Jim and
my Dad into the air." When the reception ended, a group that
included the groom and the bride in her wedding gown headed for the
cocktail lounge to keep celebrating.
PERSPECTIVE Was
the wedding different than it would have been because of what had
happened in New York only four days before? It was, but not entirely
in the ways that one might expect. For example, the bride's bouquet
was not the arrangement of pink roses edged with white sweet peas
that she had wanted. Roses, which are not in season in September in
New York, could not be delivered in the colors and varieties Kim had
wanted, so the floral designer had to work with what she could find.
The same was true of the tulips Kim wanted, and many other blooms.
At any other time, for any bride at all, this would have been a huge
disappointment. Kim points out that she simply did not care. "Before
this happened, I would worry about whether it would rain on my
wedding day. But after all that has happened, I could not have cared
less about the weather. I had so many good friends who could not
come to my wedding," Kim explains, "but they are alive and well and
that is all that matters to me now." The bride's parents have
offered to host a one-year anniversary celebration especially for
those loved ones who could not attend the wedding.
THE
HONEYMOON Having taken the plunge and tied the knot, the bride
and groom saw no reason to change their honeymoon plans for ten days
in Hawaii. They found their hotels about 30% booked, leaving plenty
of room for privacy on the fabulous beaches. Kim was delighted to
meet several other couples who had also just been married, and who
had also found their weddings to be not only beautiful, but full of
joy. The couple returned on a Thursday. On Friday, they attended a
memorial service for James Straine Jr., which Jim describes as a
"celebration of Jimmy's life." Jim was an usher at the
service.
--Lisa Carse of "TheKnot.com"
Photographs © Jinsey
Dauk
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