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Celebrations of Love JULY 18, 2013 ● ULSTER PUBLISHING ● WWW.ULSTERPUBLISHING.COM

Weddings, romance & beyond

My romance...

ALAN CAREY

18, 2013 2 | July Celebrations of Love

EDITOR’S NOTE

True romance Brian Hollander

W

hat’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done? Or, what’s the most romantic act anyone’s ever performed for you? Or, even, what’s the most romantic moment you could possibly want?

Those are the questions we posed to individuals over the past few weeks, looking for a representative sample and what we got was an outpouring of love, a cornucopia of emotion as people related their experiences and their deepest hopes and

Whatever the Event

All parties enjoy the cuisine of chef Eric Mann, an idyllic campus setting, and incomparable planning service from Peter Cantine and his staff.

dreams.

Welcome to our Celebrations of Love, something that should happen all year around, but that we get to take a deeper look at, maybe twice a year.

Yes, stories of love abound in our newspapers and in Almanac Weekly all the time, but rarely do we get to collect them and to see the impact that they make. We’ve got stories of people on scavenger hunts, of speed dating, of matchmaking, and best of all, the personal accounts of the most romantic moments that make up this life.

I suppose that if we’ve asked people to reveal their most personal romantic experiences, I

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ALAN CAREY

should come clean about my own. And I’m a very lucky guy in that respect, as several times a week I experience true romance…when my wife of 31 years this week and I pick up guitars and sing with each other, mostly old country tearjerkers, songs of the Louvin Brothers or Porter and Dolly duets, taking turns singing the lead and the close harmony. It’s true. I fall to pieces each time...

So come with us now into Celebrations of Love.

Suspend your disbelief and cynicism, if even for only a moment, and breathe in summer and romance.

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| 3

MY MOST ROMANTIC MOMENT

Provocatively posed JAMES WAS DRIVING BY THE GALLERY, and he saw me posing naked in the doorway with my arms up, being photographed. I was covered in body paint and wearing just a snakeskin bikini bottom. Nine years later, he got me tattooed on his leg, in that same pose. — Christina Varga, artist and gallerist, married to James McColgan, carpenter.

PHOTOS BY ALAN CAREY

Acrostic I WAS WORKING at a restaurant, and the sous-chef wrote me a chatty letter, in which each line had one word in bold print. When you strung them together, the message said, “Will you go out for coffee with me?�

Actually, I was just quitting the job, so I never did go out with him. — Nancy, massage therapist

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Keeping the love alive While searching for a wedding venue Dan Barton

M

ake in your mind a picture: There’s you, standing on top of a very thin, very tall tower which lets you see everything above, below and in front. Spiraling around you, like electrons orbiting an atomic nucleus, are dollar-figures, dates on a calendar, large and semi-tastefully decorated dining rooms, people playing instruments, well-dressed folk doing odd and awkward ceremonial dances. A veritable maelstrom of possibilities whirling around at dizzying speed. A multitude of options that dazzle the senses and confound the decision-making part of your brain.

Committing to spend the rest of your life with someone may have been a big decision, but now

As soon as I hit enter on the keyboard, a blip came up on a scope in the main bunker of The Wedding Industrial Complex and we were targeted… you have to figure out where to do it, and whether you can afford it. At age 45 and a half, my beloved and I are taking the plunge. Very blissful were the moments this past spring when I proposed (first in private, then during dinner at New World Home Cooking) and very rapturous the afterglow of acceptance and the excitement of entering a new stage in our togetherness.

The bliss and rapture are still there, I assure you. But before us was a task. The task of finding a place to have the wedding. If we were the kind of people who didn’t have a really great group of family and friends surrounding each of us, this wouldn’t be a problem: Get a judge or otherwiseauthorized person to conduct a brief legal process, sign some papers and that would be it. However, we both do have a really great group of friends and family surrounding us, who would all be really mad if we did a stealth wedding.

So began the search for a venue to host the happiest moment (and biggest party) of our lives. It would be a journey through both cyber- and realspace which took us in directions both expected and un-, as well as places both familiar and strange …

The Internet My fiancée is a darn sight better organized than I; very soon after she told me “yes,” she got the ball rolling. Our first stop was the web — everybody’s first stop for everything these days — and we innocently typed in “Hudson Valley wedding sites” into the omnibox. I can just imagine: As soon as I hit enter on the keyboard, a blip came up on a scope in the main bunker of The Wedding Industrial Complex and we were targeted, classified and channeled into a sort of mirror universe where everything is lovely, tasteful and flowery, baroque music is all you hear and spending a ton of money is (your) Job One.

DAN BARTON

Theknot.com. Mere words on a page do little in communicating how widespread, how pervasive, how leviathan this website is. They seem to have it all pretty much locked up, the business of being a portal to finding anything you will need for your wedding. Not to knock it totally — it’s easy to use and contains a plethora of information. But one cannot help but suspect you’re getting seriously marketed to, as in theknot.com is on thetake.com — it just smells like places pay to get put in front of your face. Caveat emptor.

One thing my fiancée noted was that immediately, as in nanoseconds, after she changed her Facebook status to “engaged,” another blip came up on The Wedding Industrial Complex’s scope, this one in the Social Networking Wing of the bunker. Starting at that moment and persisting until this moment (and not stopping until she changes her status to “married,” I suppose) she was bombarded with all sorts of ads trying to sell her stuff related to being a bride, and all manner of links about planning a wedding. Which is just another indication of how gigantic a business getting married actually is. There were more than a few times in our search where we got the distinct impression that as soon as we mentioned we were looking for a place to hold a wedding, we were shoved up into a higher tier of pricey. If we were in a Looney Tune, you would hear the chime of the cash register and see dollar signs pop up in people’s eyes. You know, like they got you over the “OMG we must have this for our beautiful perfect wedding, no matter what” barrel. Perhaps if we had it to do all over again, we would tell people we were looking for a place to have a party for Great

Uncle Aloysius’ 85th birthday party and stage a surprise wedding.

Oddly enough, or perhaps just another example of how gender-oriented marketing really is and how boxed-in men are in the wedding-planning process, I still get the same old ads for dumb Facebook games, brain-dead action movies and oversized manly-man watches that I always have.

Road trip!

One of the places we wanted to look at was a wedding venue located high, very high, up on a ridge of the Shawangunks. On a pleasant Saturday a few months ago before it got brutally hot, we took a ride down Route 209 to check it out.

I don’t get to the back end of Ulster that much; it was a nice ride through some bucolic stretches, broken up by Ellenville. (Not to knock Ellenville that hard, but they capital-N need a casino.

Or something, because the place sort of has that whole look of a town in the Old West that got left behind so bad that they don’t even have whiskey in the saloon anymore. Though how they expect to funnel casino crowds down mostly-two-lane Route 209 I can’t imagine.)

After ascending a very turny-twisty road past some Gadsden flag-flyin’ spreads that looked like they were all prepped for whatever Apocalypse may come, we got to The Eagles Nest. The view, as you can imagine, is stunning — the whole valley is laid out below. Mike, the owner, pointed out the notch through which the river runs by Newburgh.

The spring foliage had not completely deployed yet; one could only imagine how mind-blowing the place must be in all its autumnal glory. “There’s no

July 18, 2013 Celebrations of Love bad time of year to be here,” says Mike.

Besides the dining room, there’s a porch and a number of cabins the wedding party can rent to stay the night and avoid driving off the ridge or falling into the hands of one of the preppers.

Very good-looking place, reasonably priced, can’t beat the view. But one element of what we hope to include in our wedding — a 13-piece funk band who shall remain nameless — didn’t seem like it would fit. We were afraid they’d blow the roof off the place and because of the strategic location, we’d have to deal with noise complaints from at least four counties and three states. It’d fit a DJ or a smaller-scale band just fine, though: check ‘em out at theaglesnest.com.

Is this stalking, technically?

Around the same time we made our trip up the ridge, my fiancée got a packet in the mail from a fairly well-known restaurant in central Dutchess County. A restaurant we had never contacted or thought about really, but somehow they knew we were getting married and they had my fiancée’s address. Maybe The Wedding Industrial Complex is plugged in with the NSA somehow …

Anyway, inside was a sharply assembled package, along with a DVD. We put the disc into the player and watched. It’s never been easy having good taste in the Hudson Valley; while this region’s made some really significant strides in the past 10-15 years or so, the default assumption seems to be that everybody likes crappy muzak, pretty things in soft focus and impossibly poofy wedding gowns, as well as paying well upwards of $125 a guest. Maybe this approach works on kids in their 20s who feel a lot of pressure to perform and put on an impressive display, but for those of us who are grownups, it feels like a giant box of lace-covered Twinkies being shoved in our faces.

Nice try, Le Whatever, but no dice.

Speaking of elaborate weddings, nothing short of a Westminster Abbey affair could top this one I went to at Anthony’s Pier 9 down in Newburgh last summer. This was an affair to remember: Thirteen bridesmaids, ceremony in a giant indoor rain forest, sliding walls revealing the series of rooms we all were to move into over the course of the evening, the couple entering the reception hall via an elevator through the floor, a mariachi band.

If price is no obstacle and you really want the Whole Wedding Experience turned up to 11, Anthony’s Pier 9 is your place. Not our place, though.

Bringing it back home While neither myself nor my fiancée live in Kingston, we love the city and I am, after all, editor of Kingston Times, so I was both decently acquainted with what’s available in the city and eager to have the happiest day of my life transpire within its bounds. While some of my favorite spots in town (Keegan Ales and the Stockade) are too small to hold any but the most intimate of weddings, there are many other options. (Being all in on both Kingston and Ulster, we’d like to keep the arrangements as locally as we possibly can.)

There’s the Hillside Manor, sure — time-honored, professional, but not our style. My fiancée’s been active in local environmental and progressive circles, so one option that appealed was the new Clearwater Home Port and Education Center on the Rondout. They’re gearing up to host private events at the structure, a joint project of the sloop and the Hudson River Maritime Museum, and while it’s a spacious space and there was the added appeal of helping out a worthy cause, it would have been a fair amount of work to get a facility which is a repair shop and winter berth for a sloop into the kind of wedding space we liked. (And the 13-piece band would have blown the barn to pieces and we’d have noise complaints from at least three neighborhoods and two police departments.) Still, it seems like a great option for other kinds of events and we are grateful to HRMM’s Lana Chassman for taking some time on a Sunday

to show us around. Check them out at hrmm.org or call 845-338-0071.

After hanging out in the barn, we headed up a block or so to The Celebration Wedding Chapel on Wurts Street. Once upon a time it was a real church, but over the past few years, Paul Joffe has labored mightily to make it into a one-stop wedding venue. His labors have not been in vain — the place has been beautifully transformed. The main floor is open and airy; the pews are gone but the stained glass is still there, as is the perfectly functional pipe organ. (Oh, it’ll hold a 13-piece funk band just fine …) The lower floor contains a dining room, full commercial kitchen for the caterers, bathrooms and a separate room for the bride to get ready. The chapel’s planner, JoAnn Provenzano, was very helpful and reassuring and the facility very flexible and accommodating. As a couple, we acknowledge that some of our guests will not be as psyched by a massive funk-fueled dance party as we are, so they can go downstairs

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for a quieter experience. Check them out at celebrationweddingchapel.com; Provenzano’s website is at www.whatdreamsaremadeof.biz. We booked it for a date next May. Besides its special place in our hearts, Kingston is well-located in terms of where our guests are coming from and there’s plenty of lodging in the area for out-of-towners. The Rondout is replete with great food options, so we’re hopeful we can get a caterer who’ll just have to head up the hill.

And if you know me at all, you know there’ll be a Keegan’s keg in attendance as well.

So, by making our choice, we’ve put a stake in the time-space continuum, as it were, and reduced the chaos to a slightly more manageable level by imposing some major order. There’s still a lot to decide: catering, invitations, the guest list, the dress, the suit, yadda yadda. But before we get chopping on those, we’re taking a little bit of time to look back on how far we’ve come and live in the moment of our love.

VENUES

Other sites for your wedding The following are other places you might want to consider for having your wedding: 1850s House — Rosendale, 845-658-7800 www.the1850shouse.com Barnaby’s Steakhouse — New Paltz, 845-255-2433 www.barnabyssteakhouse.com Bear Cafe — Woodstock, 845-679-5555 www.bearcafe.com Clermont Historical Site — Germantown, 518-537-6622 www.friendsofclermont.org/weddings Club Helsinki — Hudson, 518-828-4800 www.helsinkihudson.com Diamond Mills — Saugerties, 845-247-0700 www.diamondmillshotel.com Fred’s Place — Lake Katrine, 845-383-3883 www.fredsplace.us Gold Fox — Gardiner, 845-255-3700 www.thegoldfoxrestaurant.com Huguenot Street — New Paltz, 845-255-1660 www.huguenotstreet.org Hunter Mountain — Hunter, 800-HunterMtn ext. 3019 www.huntermtn.com Hudson River Cruises — Kingston, 1-800-979-3370 www.hudsonrivercruises.com Lazy Swan — Saugerties, 845-247-0075 www.thelazyswan.com New World Home Cooking — Saugerties/Woodstock

845-246-0900 www.ricorlando.com Onteora Mountain House — Boiceville, 845-6576233 www.onteora.com Pollace’s Crystal Palace — Catskill, 518-943-3710 www.crystalpalacecatering.com Postage Inn — Tillson, 845-658-3434 www.facebook.com/postageinn Reginato’s Restaurant — Lake Katrine, 845-336-6968 www.reginatosristorante.com The Rhinecliff — Rhinecliff, 845-876-0590 www.therhinecliff.com River Rose Cruises — Newburgh, 562-1067 www.riverrosecruises.com Roudigan’s — Kingston, 845-339-3500 www.roudigans.com Tavern at Beekman Arms — Rhinebeck, 845-876-1766 www.beekmandelamaterinn.com The Teal: North River Charters — Kingston, 845-750-6025 www.theteal.com Tuthill House at the Mill — Gardiner, 845-255-4151 www.tuthillhouse.com Windham Ski Resort — Windham, 518-734-4300 ext. 1382 www.windhammountain.com The Would Restaurant — Highland, 845-691-9883 www.thewould.com

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18, 2013 6 | July Celebrations of Love

The business of love What the Catskills need is a good matchmaker Violet Snow

Y

ou thought matchmaking was an archaic profession, restricted in the modern world to meddling amateurs like your best friend’s roommate? You have clearly never heard of the Matchmaking Institute.

Lisa Clampitt, a licensed social worker, founded the Matchmaking Institute in New York City in 2003 and has trained over 500 matchmakers. She has also set standards and established a code of ethics in the matchmaking industry. Her own matchmaking business, VIP Life, claims a client satisfaction rate of over

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95 percent, with more than 80 percent of her clients ending up in long-term relationships. �One great thing about the business of love is that it’s recession-proof,� remarked Clampitt. “The matchmaking industry is thriving because the singles market is expanding, and our clientele is diversifying. Men and women, gay and straight, all different races and religions, they’re coming to us to find them love.�

As there are different types of clients, there are also various kinds of matchmakers, depending on the local market and the matchmaker’s ability to build a database of contacts. “It’s difficult being single in a family environment like upstate New York,� said Syracuse area matchmaker Scott Stowell, who runs a matchmaking service called Lunch Appeal with his wife, Pamela. Both are graduates of Clampitt’s program. “Being from upstate New York and being single comes with certain stereotypes,� Stowell explained. “We help people embrace being single and shake the stigmatism that is associated with it.� Self-reliance, in turn, leads to better relationships, since desperate singles tend to settle for less than they really want in a partner. “We help people avoid the ‘settle’ stage,� said Stowell.

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A boost to the matchmaking business has come from the perils of online dating, which has disenchanted many singles. Houston matchmaker Jamie Rose has found that on dating websites, women tend to lie about their age or post a picture that’s several years old. Men lie about their height.

Such deceptions are avoided in the modern matchmaking process, which involves careful screening of potential clients. “We have 2000 women in our database,� said Beth Mandell, VIP Life’s Vice President of Matching and Marketing. “I’ve met with every single one of them, personally, for up to an hour. They fill out an extensive profile, where they were born, what their parents are like, what they’re looking for, past boyfriends, what they love to do. This morning I interviewed a Harvard graduate who has an MBA and runs her own company.�

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nlike Lunch Appeal, VIP Life welcomes women into their membership at no charge, while the list of handpicked male clients is limited to about 30 individuals at a time. The men, well-heeled New York City professionals, pay $15,000 for a one-year membership, which includes an unlimited number of

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July 18, 2013 Celebrations of Love introductions, relationship coaching, and image consultation. If a fellow wants to explore a serious relationship, he can put his membership on hold for up to six months and then jump back into the pool if things aren’t working out.

Mandell, a former beauty industry executive and a graduate of the Matchmaking Institute, explained why men must pay to join VIP Life, but women don’t: “We learn in training that there are all different business models you can create. You pick one that works for you. Our database is women in New York City. That’s our specialty, what we’re good at.”

She outlined VIP Life’s criteria for accepting men as clients. “Basically, we’re checking to see, do we have women who would be super-psyched to meet this guy? What is his background? Is he relationship-oriented?

For the most part, they’re attractive guys who are in good shape and are successful. We’ve never had to say, ‘This guy isn’t attractive enough.’ But he has to have something special.” And he has to have the $15,000 fee. Women are similarly upscale and usually have careers of their own.

The Stowells also screen their clients but are not quite as picky. “First and foremost they need to be single, which means not married, or they have to show proof of legal separation papers,” said Stowell. “Second, they need to be matchable. Do they have the lifestyle, morals, beliefs, interests and personalities that others in the client pool are looking for? Third, are they realistic in their expectations, and are they looking for a relationship? We are not first-date specialists. We focus and pride our service on finding long-term relationships.”

When Lunch Appeal was formed, seven years

ago, most of the clients were in their mid-40s to mid-60s. Many were divorced or widowed and not eager to jump into a singles bar scene. They had also reached a level of success that enabled them to afford a matchmaker’s fee. The Stowells charge $50 for the initial interview. Further costs range from $395 to $995, depending upon the number of introductions and the services the cli-

“A man might say, ‘I don’t think she liked me. I’m not going to call her.’ Meanwhile the woman is saying, ‘He was so nice. I don’t know why he hasn’t called.’” ent is seeking, such as date coaching and image consultation.

“Right now we are seeing huge increases in the mid- to late 20s and 30s,” said Stowell. “I think this is because they are all sick of the results and excessive personal time wasted with the online dating sites.”

T

o increase the success rate of their matches, matchmakers also have to take an advisory role, especially in the modern world, where feminism has altered dating roles to the point where people aren’t quite sure what they’re supposed to do. Mandell troubleshoots communication prob(CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)

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18, 2013 10 | July Celebrations of Love lems, based on feedback after the first date.

“A man might say, ‘I don’t think she liked me.

I’m not going to call her.’ Meanwhile the woman is saying, ‘He was so nice. I don’t know why he hasn’t called.’”

Mandell urges her male clients to be forthright when scheduling a second date. “She doesn’t want a random text saying, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ or

even ‘So when are you free next week?’ She’s not going to give him her whole schedule. I’m always telling guys to call up, make a plan, a date and time, done. If she can’t do that time, give another option. That single thing changes lives.”

As a go-between, the matchmaker has the advantage of receiving feedback from both parties after the first date and can troubleshoot to

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smooth the way forward. “A new client came to a date in khaki shorts and black socks and loafers.

The woman was horrified,” Mandell reported. “If a man meets three women, and they all say, ‘He’s funny and handsome, but he didn’t really open up till he had three or four drinks, and I’m not comfortable with it’ — that’s an obstacle. We wait for that feedback before giving counseling.”

The Stowells have gone a step farther and written two books on the dating process, one for men and one for women. “Our books help you find dating clarity, set dating goals, and help you understand how to communicate with the opposite sex,” stated Stowell. “The male version is 90-Day Roadmap to Success with Women. We all know how guys hate to stop and ask for directions, so we have a 90-day plan, step by step, of what they need to do to attract better dates, better partners, and be a better dater.”

The edition for women is entitled Tired of Kissing Frogs. “It focuses on women loving themselves first and building this awesome life and then locating Prince Charming,” Stowell explained.

“The Matchmaking Institute is the only statelicensed matchmaking school in the world,” said Clampitt. “The training is a three-step process. You buy our home study kit for $1500, read through it, do the exercises, and then sign up for a three-day intensive training, which costs $750. If you want to be certified, you have to fill out business plan and be ready and able to take on clients. There’s a 20-minute interview, and if you pass, you get certification, a seal for your website, and you have to sign a code of ethics. The total cost is $2350.”

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statistics in term of success, track clients. It also allows matchmakers to communicate with each other and share client matches.” Graduates receive a copy of the software to help them set up their business.

Some students join matchmaking agencies such as VIP Life, but most strike out on their own.

Mandell commented, “If you love people and you love love, and you can put your self aside and look at people for who they are — it’s the best job in the world.”

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Ninety percent of her students are women, some single and some married, representing various ethnic backgrounds. Ages range from early thirties to early fifties. Most have a college degree. They come from many different occupations: lawyers, teachers, accountants, stay-athome moms.

In addition to matchmaking skills, the training covers business aspects, including how to build a database of contacts, information about the singles industry as a whole, and different business models. Clampitt has designed what she

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Instant attraction?

The nuts and bolts of speed-dating Carrie Jones Ross

T

here are precious few issues upon which a tableful of women will ever all completely agree, but this was one of them: online dating sucks.

Even I agreed. And I never agree with a tableful of women, except for this one issue.

Last month Mariner’s hosted a “Lock and Key” pre-dating, speed-dating event: an equal amount ratio of men and women pre-register for the event during which the women sit at tables and the men visit the tables for a timed, six-minute date that concludes by the ringing of the moderator’s bell.

On the date, the couple can quiz one another on their backgrounds, families, work, kids; whatever they might ask when on a blind date, only a condensed, abridged one. It’s all about time economy.

At the date’s conclusion, the participants fill out a form making notes on their date and circle whether they would like to see him or her again. After the event, people are free to meet up at the restaurant’s bar to chat it up. The next morning, each person receives an email indicating who would like to have a second date with them, and includes their email. The Lock and Key events cover Ulster, Orange, Dutchess, Putnam and Rockland counties, and draws from all those regions for any one event, increasing the daters cadre. There are different age categories, 29-39, 39-49 and 55+ so you don’t inadvertently wind up face-to-face with your grandfather at your table.

In my core, even I will admit that I was open to that Mystical Experience in which Mr. Right sits before me, all trim with mussed blond waves, emerald eyes, broad, dimpled smile, a well-paying philanthropist career and a notarized letter from his Episcopal priest guaranteeing he’s the Real Deal. He would be funny, collected, smart as heck (but I would still have to be one doink smarter), articulate, responsible, possess couth, strong, gen-

erous, love winged horses, well-mannered, playful, handy, mercurial wit and be able to change a tire or shoot a snake when needed.

Event organizer and moderator Debby DiGregorio said that there is no one age bracket and neither gender more popular than the other in demand. DiGregorio said there is actually nothing consistent in the speed-dating world. She, however, boasted that speed-dating does facilitate a lot more long-term relationships than people suspect it ever would. There is no “typical” speed-dater, she said.

I

“

t’s really not that bad.” DiGregorio stressed the “not” when confronted with one speed-dater expressing dread. Me. “Most of the people are nervous before the event starts, hence the bar availability. By the second ‘date,’ everyone is good to go. Of course, there may be people that you are not interested in, but there seem to be a lot of matches at the events. I will say, I have people drive up to over an hour to attend events a lot of the time. So just because an event is in a certain area, does not mean that the people you are meeting are from that area. And besides — I’m awesome — so everyone has a fun time.

“Vera” from Tilson who, like all the participants, did not want to reveal her real name and out herself as a “speed-dater.” She said the event was her first ever, and though she was not thrilled with the prospect of blind-dating six men, she said it was preferable to the bottom of the deepest, blackest online-dating sea. Vera, recently divorced after 16 years, works over an hour north in an intense and demanding job and said the dating pool in her rural community is severely diminished. “I am just looking for someone to go out with and have a good time,” said Vera. “Nothing heavy. No pressure on anyone, including myself.” Vera said she just couldn’t stomach dating someone she met online, and like everyone, Vera knows people with both success and horror stories. Vera said the age specificity was refreshing, citing her recent attendance at a Fleetwood Mac show.

“Julia’s” goal was to simply meet new and different people, but has her hopes set on finding a good match for love. This was not Julia’s first time

in the speed-dating rodeo. “You never know when you’re going to meet the right person,” she said.

Connie, a business owner who lives in Sullivan county, said she has a hard time meeting men, is weary from being on the scene with no luck for over six years and is tired of being single.

“Wes” is my best guy friend who gets dragged like a middle eastern hostage to everything I don’t want to do alone. We have been tight for years, and he is forced into every house move, airport ride, home repair and oversized furniture purchase I make — all for the price of my delightful wit and home-burnt meals. Wes said he did a speed-dating event ten years ago, and enjoyed it enough that he agreed not to protest too much. “I don’t care about meeting anyone,” said Wes. “I just think it will be fun.” Easygoing Wes always likes to roll where the party is.

“This is very private to me,” said “Neil” of High Falls, an academic professional. “I don’t want Mark Zuckerberg to know my marital status.” Neil explained that there is “a whole explanation” with his separation from his wife, and basically, “it’s complicated.” Neil said he was not nervous talking to strangers for the six-minute clips, but lamented that at age 44 a “nice, normal person” is not so easy to find.

The first dates found me gripping the edge of my chair. What do I do? Kids? Where do I live? However, by the third I was loosened up a bit. Half-way through we all took a break at a modest buffet and giggled in tightly formed pockets. Upon resuming the six-minute dating, everyone was seemingly more relaxed. After the event, some people went to the bar to follow-up with one another, others scattered. Those who stayed said they were not sure if they had connected with anyone, but actually enjoyed it enough to do it again. Wes split to go out to dinner and process the whole thing, date by date.

A

s I hopped out of his car after dinner, Wes called me back in. “Hey, get back here,” he said. I got back in his car, all bitchy.

What? I asked. Wes looked at me, leaned over and replied, “Kiss me.”

July 18, 2013 Celebrations of Love

| 13

MY MOST ROMANTIC MOMENT

I was ready I KNEW MY WIFE for ten years and had an incredible crush on her, but every time I’d think to ask her out, she was with someone else. We’d never even touched each other. In April of 2001, I was leading five-hundred people in a Take Back the Night march across the Mid-Hudson Bridge, and she was there. I loved her, but I thought “Why is she here?” I didn’t want just to be friends. On that night she came and stood next to me. She held my hand and whispered, “Are you ready?” By September we were married. — Peri Rainbow, ordained minister, clinician, author, educator, and proprietor at Family Traditions: A Place for Learning, Healing, and Celebrating Life in Stone Ridge

PHOTOS BY ALAN CAREY

Street story

SOON AFTER WE STARTED GOING OUT, my husband and I traveled to London and stayed with his meditation group. Unmarried men and unmarried women had to sleep in separate buildings, so we had no place to make love. One night, we were getting desperate, and we found a car parked on the street with its doors unlocked. We jumped into the back seat. Halfway through, while we were half-undressed, the car’s owner, a drunken American, opened the front door. We tried to explain, but he was rather annoyed. We made a quick getaway. It was kind of exciting. — Violet Snow, reporter

Imagine this proposal WHEN RACHEL AND I FIRST STARTED TALKING, it was about music. She is a huge Beatles fan and it was her that got me into it. Talking about the Beatles got us together. A year ago we saw the Imagine symbol in Central Park (which is the entrance to Strawberry Fields) so I thought it would be awesome to propose marriage to her right there. Everyone usually picks all the same places. New York City is also our favorite place to go because we love big cities. So April 21, 2013 we went back there and we went right to Central Park. I look for someone to take our picture at the top of the Imagine symbol. He took a picture and I asked if he would take one more... so I took the ring out of my backpack, dropped to one knee and told her, “I love you more than anything or anyone. I know I’ll never want another. Rachel, will you marry me?” The whole time she was waving her hands saying, “Oh my God, oh my God, Oh my God” and a few people said, “Oh my God, look what he’s doing!” She said yes and I got up and hugged her. Everyone clapped and I turned around and said, “Surprise!” which made them laugh. A few came over and looked at the ring. Probably 20 people [were around us]. She said it was the perfect proposal and couldn’t ask for anything better. — Mark Hammersly of Kingston

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MY MOST ROMANTIC MOMENT

Sharp deďŹ nitions ON OUR FIRST DATE, Hillary asked me to her house for dinner. I walked in and saw the wings of birds tacked on her living room wall like some people hang paintings. She reeled off their names: red-tailed hawk, Canadian goose, red-shouldered hawk. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re marvelous,â&#x20AC;? I said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Where did you get these?â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Road kill and corpses in the woods,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I took my knife and sliced the wings off.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you always carry a knife?â&#x20AC;? I said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sure,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You never fucking know.â&#x20AC;? At that moment, I quietly fell in love.

We were both divorced. After a year of dating and even of buying a farmhouse together, I had still sworn off any mention of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mâ&#x20AC;? word. Unbeknownst to her, I drove one day to her parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; house and asked them for permission to propose to their daughter. I had imagined this big romantic proposal on a canoe ride and had prepared rather elaborate metaphors about the deep stream merging with the wide pond or some such nonsense.

When she got home from work, I said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take a canoe ride.â&#x20AC;? She loved to go on canoe rides to scoop up algae to use as fertilizer for her garden. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Great!â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Let me get my bucket!â&#x20AC;? As I tried to wax philosophical, my girlfriend was heaping gobs of algae that looked like wet cat fur into a bucket. Bits of grit and algae speckled the face and hands of the woman I was determined to spend my life with. At that moment, I just looked at her and let go of my waxing words and knew through my whole body, this is what I love: all of her.

I wobbled to the center of the canoe and got on

my knees. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jeffrey!â&#x20AC;? she said, holding on to the canoe sides. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What are you doing?â&#x20AC;? I said something corny about would she let the pond and stream merge with me and held out my hand. She paused, kind of reeling since I had asked that we not talk

about marriage for the rest of the year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Are you serious? Of course!â&#x20AC;? She jumped to hug me, and we nearly fell out of the canoe. And we sealed the deal with a gritty, salty kiss.  â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Jeffrey Davis, author, yoga teacher, creativity coach and workshop facilitator, and community instigator

Foretold MY BEST FRIEND SAID sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d met a man for me. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the guy youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to marry,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;His name is Clark Strand.â&#x20AC;? The next morning, I went to my favorite pastry shop and sat down with my coffee and croissant. A man came up and asked if he could sit with me. I almost said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;There are plenty of seats, and I have a lot of work to do.â&#x20AC;? But then I saw he was carrying his mail â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it was addressed to Clark Strand. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell him about my friend. For two hours, we talked as if we had known each other all our lives. When he went home, he wrote in his journal, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve met the woman Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to marry.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Perdita Finn, writer, married to Clark Strand, also a writer

PHOTOS BY ALAN CAREY

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Second time around TEN YEARS AFTER I GOT MARRIED, I had a job where I could not wear my wedding ring to work. I took it off and put it in a box in my dresser.

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July 18, 2013 Celebrations of Love

| 15

MY MOST ROMANTIC MOMENT there and then to celebrate together… the following week, in July. It was beautiful. We made a pact.

From then on, Valentine’s Day would become two celebrations: one at the usual time in February during the quiet of winter and again every July in the fullness of summer. A tradition to look forward to. — Dr. Bruce Schneider, chiropractor/healer, publisher of online magazine Go Beyond Press

Weather walk marry me again?” I was in tears. — Carla Cuciti, assistant manager at Barnes & Noble, still in tears relating this incident

The big picture

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6400 MONTGOMERY ST., 2ND FLOOR RHINEBECK, NEW YORK 12572

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HAIR CO-OP

845.876.0330

La Tua Bella Beauty Bar

Rhinebeck, NY www.latuabella.com

Make Your Special Occasion

Historic

Bridal Showers Weddings Rehearsal Dinners Engagements

Give your bridal party their own cause for celebration.

Before you say “I do,” do something special for your friends. Treat them to an aromatic Aveda ritual based on Ayurveda — the ancient healing art of India — and our own pure flower and plant essences. From facials, manicures and pedicures to hair and makeup services — each is a ceremony in itself. Start the celebration by scheduling your appointments at Aveda today.

Packages Available Call Our Events Planner x384

The Tavern at Beekman Arms Rhinebeck, NY 845-876-1766

well GROOMed Unique Gifts

for the Groom and his Groomsmen

Premium Cigars 15% off Full Boxes

Cigar Rollers & Cigars Arranged to Match Perfectly with Your Party

Rhinebeck Smoke Shoppe

2 E. Market St. Rhinebeck, NY 12572 845876.7185 www.RHINEBECKSMOKESHOPPE.com

47 East Market St. • Suite 4 Rhinebeck, NY 12572