Venerable NY congregation fires employee for being pregnant at her wedding

The congregation “failed miserably in their attempt to merge traditional Judaism with modern civil laws,” she claims.
The former program director of the oldest Jewish congregation in America said she was fired from her job because she was pregnant at the time of her wedding.
Lawyers for Alana Shultz said in a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday that Congregation Shearith Israel, a Spanish and Portuguese synagogue founded in 1654, fired her after learning she was pregnant at her June wedding. She was about 23 weeks pregnant when she was fired on July 21, according to the 13-page complaint filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Courthouse News reported.
The congregation “failed miserably in their attempt to merge traditional Judaism with modern civil laws,” the lawsuit charges.
The lawsuit alleges three counts of violations of the Family Medical Leave Act and New York City and State human rights law.
“After working tirelessly at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue for the last 11 years, I am beyond saddened they’ve forced me to file this lawsuit, which I hope will help other women avoid what they did to me during what should be a time for celebration and joy,” Shultz said in a statement, the New York Post reported.
Shultz said in the lawsuit that she told her supervisor about her pregnancy as she left on her honeymoon. The supervisor told the congregation’s rabbi, Meir Soloveichik and a board member, Michael Lustig, according to the lawsuit. When she returned from her honeymoon, Shultz was told that her position was being eliminated due to restructuring, and the congregation asked her to sign a release waiving litigation and agreeing not to badmouth the synagogue in exchange for six weeks severance pay. When Shultz hired a lawyer, the congregation offered to reinstate her, the lawsuit said.

Schultz was program director at the congregation since 2004, according to the synagogue’s website. She received her Master’s degree in Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Fake wedding is real bridal showcase

An event at the historic Poe House on Sunday evening will be part performance, part party and part bridal showcase.
It's a fake wedding and reception, and everyone's invited.
But organizers are particularly hoping to attract couples who are planning or starting to think about their own weddings.
The event will show off the work of at least 14 local wedding vendors, from florists to photographers to shops that sell and rent wedding clothes. It also will spotlight the Poe House itself, which is starting to be marketed as a wedding venue, said organizer Mary Jane Jones.
The house, built in 1897, is part of the Museum of the Cape Fear property at 206 Bradford Ave. in Fayetteville.
Only its grounds are available for weddings. The house can be used for photographs of the wedding party, and an upstairs room has been renovated into a suite with a kitchenette and a bathroom for use by brides and their attendants, Jones said.
The rental fee would include tents, tables and chairs, she said. The property can accommodate weddings with up to 250 guests.
Sunday's fake wedding - called the Faux at the Poe - will provide a glimpse of how a real wedding would look at the site. Fake weddings have become popular around the country as vehicles for bridal showcases.
As is typical, the couple pronouncing their vows Sunday are already married, though only recently. Jones said Keri Brockett and Nick Carelas still have a "newlywed glow." Brockett will be wearing a wedding dress from Blush Bridal and Carelas a tuxedo from Otrebla's Tailoring.
The ceremony, from 5 to 5:30 p.m., will be on the front steps and the "reception" in the backyard. It will include dinner, dancing and, of course, cake and go until 9 p.m. Jones said people will be able to talk with representatives from all the vendors in a low-key atmosphere.
The event is a fundraiser for the Poe House and the nonprofit Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex Foundation. Tickets are $10 until 5 p.m. Friday and $15 afterward. They can be purchased through eventbrite.comor at the door.

Because alcohol will be served, the event is closed to anyone under age 21.

Palestinian Woman Is First to Oversee Muslim Wedding Vows

Tahrir Hammad thinks women, including herself, are too emotional to serve as judges, and accepts without question an Islamic legal dictate that sees two women as equivalent to one male witness for official ceremonies.
Yet Ms. Hammad, 36, is a pioneer, having recently become the first woman to be permitted to perform Muslim marriages in the Palestinian territories. She seems not to be bothered by the subsequent criticism, even from a former professor of hers, Hussam el-Deen Mousa Afana, who described her appointment as “opening a door of a metastasizing evil” in a post on Facebook on Aug. 14.
“Honestly, I didn’t think of what people would think,” Ms. Hammad said recently. “I like taking risks.”
She added, with a laugh: “I wanted to show that women could do it. I wanted to ignite sparks. I wanted to throw a bomb.”
Ms. Hammad is not the first Palestinian woman to occupy a position traditionally reserved for men in Muslim societies. In 2009, a liberal-minded jurist, Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, appointed the Palestinian territories’ first two female Islamic court judges, who now rule on divorce, custody and inheritance. Islamic courts oversee all family affairs for Muslims in the territories.
As with Ms. Hammad, the appointment of the female judges was initially met with derision. But they are now an accepted part of the landscape, alongside the growing numbers of women who preach Islam to other women at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third-holiest site.
Advocates for women’s rights welcomed the appointments but said they were only a start in addressing myriad problems in marital law and the marriage process, unfair custody and alimony rules, and the failure to inform women of their rights. Those obstacles cannot be overcome, advocates say, because of deep resistance from conservative judges and paralysis in the Palestinian Parliament.
But progressive Muslim scholars hope pioneers like Ms. Hammad will encourage more women to seek positions within the Islamic judicial system. That would provide a more empathetic space for women to assert their rights, they said.
“This is a blessed beginning,” said Sheikh Tamimi, the former top Islamic Palestinian judge. “When a woman is explaining herself to a woman, to a person of her own gender, it is much easier than her explaining herself to a man.”
Since Ms. Hammad’s appointment, two more women have applied to become marriage celebrants. A government committee is considering their applications.
Palestinian wedding celebrations are typically elaborate, multiple-day affairs involving meaty feasts and hundreds of guests, with the bride wearing a series of ornate dresses topped with head scarves. But couples are officially married in a minutes-long ceremony in a drab office where the groom and the bride’s father sign a marriage contract.
That is where Ms. Hammad comes in. On a recent day, she sat at a large desk, in a brown-and-green head scarf and long robe, as cheery men and women squeezed into the room.
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyThe mother of the bride remarked excitedly that a woman was going to officiate the marriage, and began cracking jokes about throwing her husband out of the window and starting over.
Ms. Hammad asked the bride, Saja Harfoush, 22, if she consented to being married to a 23-year-old municipal worker. Ms. Harfoush muttered inaudibly.
Ms. Harfoush’s mother, emboldened by Ms. Hammad’s presence, called out to her daughter, “Raise your voice!”
Later, the families thanked Ms. Hammad for asking the bride clearly if she consented to the ceremony.“She gave space to ask the bride what she wanted,” Ms. Harfoush’s mother said. “When I was married, the celebrant didn’t let me speak. It wasn’t like what our sister Tahrir just did.”
On the same day, the families of Munif Qamish, 22, the groom, and Raghad Qamish, 17, the bride, filed into the tiny office. The couple share the same last name because they are first cousins, a traditional pairing in Palestinian society.
Ms. Hammad began the ceremony by explaining the importance of marriage in Islam but then paused, realizing there was only one male witness when two were needed.
Then Ms. Hammad recalled that the two women in the room could act as a witness under Islamic law as practiced by Palestinians, which states that two female witnesses are the equivalent of one man.
“We could have two women, but then we’ll have to squeeze in the signatures,” she said, tapping on the official ledger before her.
The groom’s brother hastily found an older Palestinian man who would act as a second witness.
The ceremony resumed. Ms. Hammad turned to the teenage bride, asking if she had any conditions she wanted stipulated in her marriage contract. Ms. Qamish whispered, “I would like to finish my education.”
Later, Ms. Qamish said she had not realized she could make her marriage conditional on her right to finish her studies until Ms. Hammad had asked her.
Ms. Hammad said Sheikh Tamimi, the former judge, had first urged her to seek a celebrant’s position in 2009. But it took her years of working as a high-level scribe, not really advancing professionally, to realize she wanted the job. Then, this year, Ms. Hammad said, she walked into a room where two Islamic judges were talking about marriage celebrants. She interjected, “So you think a woman can do it?”
“They said: ‘Yes. Do it. Apply,’ ” she said.In a gush of courage, Ms. Hammad filed an application. That part was easy, in that any Islamic court official can apply to be a celebrant.
Her application was passed to a government committee of Islamic judges who met twice over two months to debate whether it was permissible in Islam for a woman to oversee a marriage. In mid-July, she received her answer: Yes.
Even though she is qualified to become an Islamic judge, Ms. Hammad said she was satisfied that she had reached her professional pinnacle as a marriage celebrant.
“You would think this is contradictory, but I would not be a judge,” she said, blushing. “I consider myself too emotional.”
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyYet Ms. Hammad has coolly weathered a wave of criticism.
She wrote a Facebook response to her former professor, Mr. Afana, politely rebutting his criticisms — mostly that women should not mix with men, and that a woman working late would neglect her family and children. She noted that every modern profession involved the mixing of genders, and that she did not work late. She ignores mockery by colleagues unaccustomed to seeing a woman in charge.
Ordinary Palestinians have embraced Ms. Hammad. Only two of more than 20 couples have refused to allow her to officiate at their marriages. Those two were quietly redirected to a male celebrant, though generally, it is first come first served in the Islamic courts.
Ms. Hammad noted that it was clear she was the first female celebrant: Only men, she said, would think it was O.K. to marry off couples in a tiny office that doubles as an archive room, with black binders full of marriage certificates covering the walls.

“I’d like a room with flowers and a fish tank,” Ms. Hammad said. “I think it’s better to have a romantic atmosphere, where everybody can relax.”

Platinum prices for Iranian weddings poke at revolutionary norms

In the wedding planner’s lair, the Iranian bride-to-be sits on a black leather couch, dolled up in a tailored yellow jacket and red lipstick, flanked by her parents.
The news isn’t good.
Their wedding venue – a remote garden, tailor-made for lavish weddings – had been shut down the night before by police for breaking all the rules that are typically broken at such events in Iran. Men and women danced together; headscarves disappeared; there was no permit. Now they were scrambling to find an alternative for their $20,000 nuptials, the going rate here these days for a luxury wedding.
Such conspicuous displays of wealth are testing Iran’s revolutionary norms, both because of the economic divide that they showcase as well as a broader shift in social attitudes that underpin a surge in divorces. The wedding industry offers a window into these shifting mores and into the efforts by officials to curb or corral them, with limited success.
Most Iranians are unlikely ever to peer inside the walled gardens of platinum-priced weddings. But social media and satellite channels are bringing the images to the masses at a time when Iranians were supposed to be tightening their belts to combat nuclear-related sanctions. And the rising divorce rate cuts across social class – one in three marriages in Tehran end in divorce, a fact not lost on Iran’s clerical establishment.
The Tehran Friday prayer leader 10 days ago, for example, even started his sermon with a lecture on the importance of marriage in Islam, before moving on to the routine anti-US, anti-Israel rhetoric. Iran is plagued by 500 divorces a day, he said.
Couples need to “know God” and be revolutionary, said Ayatollah Ali Movahedi-Kermani. “Unfortunately the priorities have changed.… The basis has turned into materialistic stuff, so if pleasure is disrupted they just divorce.… What happened to patience?”
Gold coins and sexual satisfaction
Divorce numbers have more than doubled in the last decade, according to official statistics. To slow the trend, the Ministry of Health in recent months added education about sexual satisfaction to mandatory pre-marriage courses.
Dowry laws have also been changed. Two years ago, the maximum legal dowry was reduced to 110 gold coins, roughly $29,400, in order to make the proceeds of such action less appealing to women and to deter defrauding of men by unscrupulous women. Brides can demand a dowry before or during marriage, and certainly if things turn sour. Last month another law was changed so that men are not immediately sent to jail for nonpayment of dowries – a move aimed at easing pressure on prisons.
An older Iranian man who recently re-married said he had to pledge a dowry of 100 gold coins to impress his bride’s family, though the couple privately agreed not to exchange gold. He described his ceremony as simple, in contrast to others that seek to “show the worth and honor of the family, in competition with others,” even if it puts a family into debt.
After the 1979 Islamic revolution, this groom says, even the richest Iranians “drove ordinary cars and ate normal food, but had fat bank accounts. Now we have the exact opposite.”
A Mercedes-class wedding
It is relatively easy to marry in Iran, with a straightforward civil ceremony overseen by a cleric recognized as legal. Couples need to take blood tests, a short pre-marriage course, and get the approval of the father of the bride. The wedding celebration itself is a cultural tradition, and as religious – or not – as a family wants it to be.
For those in search of glitz, there is the demimonde of the wedding planners. At an unmarked home office in an upscale Tehran neighborhood, groups sit on clusters of couches in the living room and hallway, taking turns with a planner whose hard-sell tactics tap into each family’s desire to sparkle on the night. When the family that lost its venue starts quibbling about the band, the feast, the white-gloved service – and the chances of a police raid – they are told: “I am selling you a Mercedes! It will be the best."
Demand is strong for alternatives to official wedding halls, where men and women must stay on separate floors, and mixed dancing is taboo. Such alternative venues come and go: In the past one-and-a-half months alone, 154 gardens used for luxury weddings, or nearly half the total available, have been shuttered.
“Our families are traditional, but what we see on satellite channels is modern and we are stuck in the middle,” says the wedding planner. Social media helps sell his business, but opulent scenes also prompt crackdowns. A policeman from a special judiciary unit that was raiding one wedding told him: “They brought me from the Kurdistan frontline fighting Islamic State, to deal with this!”
Health Ministry research published last week shows that marriage ranks only the seventh priority for young Iranians, with a job and money topping the list.
“The idea is this new generation is quite irresponsible, because they’ve been living off their parents and were not responsible for doing anything on their own,” says Nasrin Izadpanah, a lawyer who has handled divorce cases for a decade.
She has seen couples together for years “realize they can’t live under the same roof even 24 hours,” and seen a lack of both commitment and honesty. The fact that couples legally can’t live together before marriage, she says, and emotional decisions made with little forward thinking, keep divorce numbers high.
Quickie divorces and alimony payments
Divorce is straightforward in Iran, provided the man agrees. In the past, women would have to repeatedly petition a court to get an unwilling spouse to accept. Now a deal is usually reached first, for example over alimony, so that divorce can be granted quickly. Couples must first visit an official marriage counselor, and there’s a three-month window before annulment to allow for a change of heart.
Most divorce cases of young newlyweds, says Ms. Izadpanah, are over small-bore disagreements; few are as civilized as the couple depicted in the Oscar-winning film “A Separation.” She adds: “Before people were more flexible, they were willing to compromise. But nowadays it seems they just want to hurt each other."
Avoiding such hurt is the job of Ahmad Basiri, a white-turbaned cleric with a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard who has served as a religious marriage counselor for 27 years. He has been married 29 years, and says Islam has a structure that divides life into segments, with marriage being a critical one.
Social media and satellite channels, he says, “are poisoning our families” by “making immoral relations seem normal” – a view widely held among conservatives. Satellite dishes are illegal, but widely used.
Luxury weddings are a sign of “getting far from religious beliefs,” says Mr. Basiri, sitting on the carpet of an ornate blue-tiled mosque. “The Iranian people have shown throughout history, that in the end they will do a U-turn and return to those Islamic beliefs.”
That was not the expectation last week at one luxury wedding, 20 miles west of Tehran, in a leafy garden with high walls deliberately made to look from the outside like just another industrial compound, so as not to invite police attention. Inside the manicured grounds, as the couple sat before a spread of glass ornaments and candles, gifts were announced with competitive flair: The bride’s sister gave two gold coins; an aunt – spoken very loudly – had “just come from America” and gave $600.

Then inside a hall the band began playing a pop song with traditional beats and a pounding bass line. Wedding-goers rose from their glittering tables, women removed their headscarves – if they still had them on – and jokes about a police raid died away as they joined the bride and groom on the dance floor.

Chick Wit: How to be the Best Wedding Guest

As wedding season throws its final handful of rice, I've reflected on what it means to be a great wedding guest. Anyone can show up on time, dressed appropriately, with a warm heart and well wishes for the happy couple. But how can you take your guesthood to the next level? I've identified some key players at every successful wedding. See where you fit in, and make your next R.S.V.P. essential.
Up first is the Master of Ceremonies. He or she is that friend with the right mix of warmth and seriousness to pull off the most important duties at the ceremony, like giving a reading or officiating. My buddy has been asked to give a reading at nearly every wedding he's invited to. He's a pop-culture junkie with an English Ph.D., so he finds the perfect excerpt, whether from an Edith Wharton novel or an episode of Gilmore Girls. It's a gift. Don't waste this friend as a ring bearer; a cute dog can do that. Get the Master of Ceremonies front and center to make us all look more mature and responsible than we really are.
Another classic is the Crybaby. Every wedding needs that one guest to provide the waterworks. I confess, I suck at this. When I was a bridesmaid, I warned my bride that the performance pressure of a wedding blocks my tear ducts like the Hoover Dam. But that's why this role is important; not everyone can do it. Bonus points if you're a male. Crybaby-man-tears catch like wildfire. Daily Double if the Crybaby is somebody's dad. Don't be embarrassed: A wedding calls for sentimentality, so bring us on home.
I've recently developed a specialty as the Off-the-Cuff Speaker. Speeches are high-stakes at a wedding. I'm comfortable with public speaking, and I have a great memory for funny yet flattering anecdotes. As a writer, I can edit on the fly, so that hilarious spring-break story can be rendered appropriate for all audiences. Every newlywed needs that backup speaker in the wings in case the Best Man whiffs it. A good Off-the-Cuff friend ensures the reception is only a glass-clink away from rescue.
Once the reception gets rolling, the Crazy Dancer comes in. The Crazy Dancer can be crazy-good, or better yet, just crazy. He or she breaks the seal on looking cool on the dance floor and gives us all permission to cut loose. His manic enthusiasm is contagious and fun, in small doses. Stand near him too long, and you risk being struck by a flailing arm or the tail end of "the worm."
Then there's the Child Star. This kid displays the attention-seeking behavior that can make for a terror in the grocery store, but a superstar at a wedding reception. Slick moves in a tiny package, this kid charms everyone by dominating the dance floor and giving us old people a much-needed breather until the sugar buzz wears off. With that uninhibited charisma, the Child Star could grow into the next Jimmy Fallon or Jennifer Lawrence . . . or the next Crazy Dancer.
The Social Media Maven. These days, your wedding is part of your personal brand. You need a professional, or a pal who acts like one. The Social Media Maven comes up with a punny hashtag based on the couple's names, and posts online gorgeous candids of the day, filtered to perfection, of course. Who can wait two months for professional photos to come out? Newlyweds need bragging rights on Facebook now. Consider yourself #blessed to have a friend like this.
The After-Party Promoter. This person intuits the exact moment when the reception is dying down. Or if intuition isn't your thing, just have the DJ play Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" and achieve the same end. The After-Party Promoter somehow knows a solid dive bar in whatever city he's in. He's the patron saint of Patrón. He gets everyone else drunk on shots, yet stays sober enough himself to herd us all back on the party bus or other safe transportation home. At the end of the night, he's the bro-hero you need.
Hopefully, you've recognized yourself in one of these key roles. But if not, don't worry. You have until next wedding season to hone your skills.

Look for Lisa and Francesca's latest humor collection, "Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?" Also, look for Lisa's newest novel, "Every Fifteen Minutes."

UGA target focused on his upcoming wedding

“Those things — you just can’t control,” he told the AJC’s DawgNation.com. “I just got to do me and everything will work out for me and my family. You can only control yourself … I know I still have a spot if I choose to (commit there).”
Bolles, who attends Snow College in Utah, released his top seven in late July, and UGA made the cut. He says he’s still considering those same schools and that nothing has really changed. Why? Well, he’s getting married in three months.
“I still have the same top seven,” Bolles told the AJC’s DawgNation.com. “I’ve been focusing on getting married in December. I’ve just been enjoying life and enjoying the opportunity I have for my future family.”
The nation’s No. 4 junior college prospect says he keeps up with recruiting, but his main focus right now is preparing for his marriage and honeymoon, in addition to being the leader of his football team.
“You only get married once, well, at least that’s the goal,” he laughed. “I’m definitely going to take her on a honeymoon. I think we’re going to Mexico on a cruise. I’m just looking forward to spending the rest of my life with my sweetheart. The Lord has blessed me with the love of my life, and I could not be happier.”
Even with his busy schedule, Bolles still found some time to squeeze in a lengthy conversation with Mark Richt on Thursday.
“He was just checking up on me to see how I was doing,” Bolles said. “I talk to (UGA offensive line coach Rob) Sale and coach Richt weekly. I’m grateful that they take time out of their busy schedules to talk to me.”
The 6-foot-5, 290-pounder is very secretive when it comes to which schools he likes. He says he won’t tell any reporters which schools have the edge over any other, but Bolles did express his love for Georgia.
“They’re definitely up there. I’m excited to take my official visit there. I’m building an awesome relationship with coach (Rob) Sale and coach Mark Richt. They’re really awesome people. I’m just very pleased and grateful to be recruited by a great program that produces great linemen for the next level.”
Bolles will take his official visit to UGA on Jan. 15-16. He’s only been to Georgia one other time. His mother is from Albany, Ga., and he has other family members in the state.
Besides that, UGA is also a potential landing spot for him because of Richt’s faith, which has been a common theme for several recruits.
“(Richt’s) a Christian man and that’s something I am looking for in my next coach,” Bolles said. “I am a very Christian man. I love my faith and I have decided to raise my future family in my faith as well.”

Bolles will announce his commitment shortly after he takes all of his official visits in January.

A same-sex wedding sparks a political furor in Spain

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is planning to attend a wedding Friday, but it's not just any wedding -- it's the marriage of two men. This is news in 2015 because Rajoy has consistently opposed the recognition of same-sex marriage, which became legal in Spain 10 years ago.
Cue accusations of hypocrisy and a debate about loyalty to friends over political principles -- all of this occurring with national elections 12 weeks away.
The wedding is in Vitoria, in the Basque country, between Rajoy political ally Javier Maroto and his partner Josema Rodriguez. Maroto is a senior official of the governing Popular Party, or PP, which Rajoy leads. Not only has Rajoy said he plans to attend; a PP colleague has disclosed he's an official witness of the marriage.
"Will he, won't he go?" has taken up acres of Spanish media coverage and spawned a new hashtag on Twitter: #laBodaDeMaroto (the marriage of Maroto). While it's unlikely to dominate the election campaign, the event has led to dissent between the conservative and more centrist factions of Rajoy's party. It may also be politically awkward since the party's base is among the older and (by and large) more conservative Spaniards.
El Mundo, one of Spain's leading dailies, said Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Diaz has warned Rajoy that attending Maroto's nuptials would contradict the Popular Party's record. Diaz said pointedly he did not receive an invitation. But other party figures did. Andrea Levy -- a rising star -- said she is going and plans to enjoy the occasion.
The opposition Socialist Party is enjoying the Prime Minister's discomfort, congratulating Maroto on his wedding and expressing pride that the law it passed a decade ago should have brought happiness to so many people. Twisting the knife, party spokesman Angeles Alvarez tweeted that Rajoy is planning to celebrate in private what he persecutes in public.
Senior figures in the Popular Party have tried to play down the issue. Esperanza Aguirre, who leads the PP on the Madrid City Council, said the party is not a sect and there's room for differing views. As for Maroto, he said he'll understand if the Prime Minister does not attend because "he's busy with the regional elections in Catalonia."
In an effort to limit the political fallout, Maroto said that while his party does oppose same-sex marriage, it supports the rights and obligations of such unions and it hasn't tried to reverse the law in the current parliament. He said his relationship with the Prime Minister will not be affected whether the leader attends or not, and he doesn't want "a private event to become a media circus."
Same-sex marriage called 'poke in the eye' to CatholicsIn 2005, Spain became at that time the third country in Europe to recognize same-sex marriage.Rajoy protested in parliament on the day the Socialists, then in the majority, passed the law.
Since then, he has continued to insist that marriage must be between a man and a woman -- and that same-sex couples should be content with civil unions. As leader of the opposition, Rajoy and others in the Popular Party challenged the law in Spain's Constitutional Court, saying that it "perverts the basic institution of marriage." Rajoy also said that allowing same-sex marriage (as opposed to civil unions) was a "poke in the eye" to Catholics.
In an 8-3 vote, the court eventually rejected the appeal. In a ruling in 2012, the court recognized that in same-sex marriage "a step forward is being made towards guaranteed personal dignity and the free development of one's personality."
"In Spain there is broad social acceptance of marriage between same-sex couples," the court added -- citing opinion polls that support same-sex marriage.
But before the last election, many same-sex couples in Spain feared that Rajoy would try to reverse the law if his Popular Party won. Some hastened to tie the knot, which made the village of Campillo de Ranas north of Madrid -- (population 184 in the last census) -- a busy place. Its mayor had come up with a novel way of battling Spain's crippling recession: welcoming same-sex couples to wed.
The importance of social issues to Rajoy's supportersMaroto's wedding has briefly diverted attention from the other main issues of Spain's upcoming election: the economy and Europe's refugee crisis.
Rajoy -- who has taken a hard line on migration -- eventually agreed to the European Commission's request that Spain take some 17,000 of the current tide of refugees entering Europe. Some cities led by left-wing parties have taken the initiative on providing shelter and support to refugees.
The Prime Minister has focused on economic recovery as the main achievement of the Popular Party's five years in power. Spanish banks have been rescued, unemployment has fallen and Spain enjoys (at 3.1%) one of the highest rates of growth in the European Union. Some 500,000 jobs were created in 2014, although youth unemployment remains stubbornly high.
But social issues remain important to a significant faction of Popular Party supporters and politicians. After abandoning a proposal to ban abortion on demand, the government recently pushed through a measure forbidding minors from having an abortion without parental consent. Even so, several of the party's senators voted against the measure as inadequate.
Opinion polls suggest no party will gain an overall majority in December's elections, as two new groups -- Ciudadanos and Podemos -- threaten to take votes from the Popular Party and Socialists, respectively. Podemos is an insurgent left-wing party similar to Syriza in Greece; Ciudadanos is a centrist pro-business party.
There is also the wild card of Catalonia, where parties promising a path to independence and those content with autonomy do battle in regional elections at the end of September. If the pro-independence parties secure a majority of votes, they plan an 18-month transition to secession from Spain.
Antonio Roldan Mones of risk consultancy Eurasia Group expects that in the national elections at least three parties will be needed to form a viable coalition, with the Popular Party likely to emerge the largest on the strength of its economic record. It may also benefit -- after the Catalan elections -- from being seen as the best guarantor of Spain's unity.
But in any event, he expects forming a new government "will be very difficult" and a new constitutional amendment may be needed to decentralize power further -- in education, language rights and finance -- to meet Catalan demands.

In Vitoria, Maroto may just be looking forward to Saturday and married life. He told the Spanish radio station COPE he hopes that one day weddings such as his will not be big news -- and that everyone will accept them as normal.

Unlucky in Love Bride Loses Two Wedding Rings Within Two Days of Marriage

As if losing your diamond wedding band into the ocean right before saying “I do” on your big day isn’t terrible enough, try losing your actual engagement ring just two days later.
That’s exactly what happened to Alena Gale Smith during her romantic, sunset nuptials aboard a sailboat in the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor.
“We decided to elope very last minute after throwing this wedding together in about 11 days,” Gale Smith, of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, told ABC News of their Aug. 9 nuptials. “We were on the bow of the boat. We arranged for a sailboat, the Alize, to take us out, to sail for about an hour and half and we’d anchor close to the Battery right at sunset to do the vows. It really was perfect and very romantic.”
Everything was going swimmingly until her groom, Trent Smith, reached into his pocket to pull out the small pouch where he was keeping her new diamond wedding band to place on her finger. But then, Mother Nature had different plans.
“The boat was rocking and the wind picked up. The pouch got caught in the wind and went flying overboard,” Gale Smith, 30, explained. “We said, ‘Oh my gosh, the ring went into the water! The pouch went into the water!’ I asked the captain if he could quick grab a net, and as soon as I said that, Trent without hesitation just dove overboard. It was loud and kind of scary at first.”
The couple was anchored right off the Charleston Battery in water about 12 feet deep when Smith, quite literally, dove head first into their marriage.
“He was hoping he could just dive right on top of it and grab it, but once he got back in the boat and opened the pouch, to his dismay, the ring was not in the pouch.”
Even though the diamond band may have sunk, the ceremony floated on.
“Bill, the captain said, ‘Change shirts with me so you can at least have on a dry shirt,’” Gale Smith recalled, thankful her new husband wouldn’t be soaking wet for photos. “I said, ‘Hurry up, the sun’s about to go down. Let’s just move on. We need to get our pictures. We had a little kiss and got it finished and still had a really great time.”
The newlyweds carried on smoothly with smiles on their faces, not letting the overboard wedding band sink their celebratory spirits.
But that unfortunately wasn’t the end of their wedding ring woes.
Just two days later, Gale Smith lost her actual wedding ring, too.
“The following Tuesday, I don’t know happened,” she said. “I was doing some crafts with my son, I had cleaned out the closet and the refrigerator, did about five loads of laundry, and then we played baseball in the fields and walked out dog that day.”
It was a typical busy day for the new bride who had only worn her wedding ring for about four days due to the extremely short engagement. It was a bit big, however.
“I called the jeweler to see what size I wore before he ordered it, but that was when I had just had my son and now I’ve lost weight,” said Gale Smith.
She thinks the ring must have slipped off somewhere during her many activities.
“I retraced all my steps and it’s nowhere to be found. I have a very bad history of losing everything,” she said. “I was just starting to get used to it and now I miss it so much.”
Her groom is now out about $5,000 and has no plans to immediately replace the rings.
“I would never ask him to do that anyway,” said Gale Smith. “He still wants to replace my band but I wouldn’t replace the band without it matching the ring.
“He was like, ‘I’ll just buy you another one on our 100-year anniversary,’” she said her husband joked. “He has no plans on replacing it because he’s hopeful that it will turn up. I’m not giving up hope yet, either. It’s still a hefty penny and even if it had cost less money, you hate to not have it anymore.”
The lovebirds are remaining optimistic though, saying they wouldn’t change a thing about their big day.
“This is one of those things where you could really let this bring you down, but it’s just materialistic,” Gale Smith explained. “We still have our marriage. We still have each other. It’s a really perfect example of how things don’t always go as expected, but it’s up to you have the right attitude to get through it. We wouldn’t change it because it’s been such a great story and something so memorable. We’ve just been laughing about it, because what else can you do?”

She’s also happy to report that yes, the groom still has his wedding band safe and sound on his finger.

Wedding: Courtney Hartmann and Michael Tisa

Courtney Hartmann was the maid of honor, and Michael Tisa was the best man at Greg and Brooke Moore’s wedding in Kansas City in November 2010. Last month, the Moores were able to return the favor when Courtney and Michael were married at a sunset wedding at Mission Bay.
Courtney, 33, and Michael, 34, didn’t know each other before their friends’ wedding. Courtney, originally from Ashland, Kan., was living in San Diego, and Michael was living in his hometown of St. Louis. They had met their friends as sophomores in college: Courtney at the University of Kansas and Michael at the University of Missouri.
The two were introduced to each other at a bar before the rehearsal dinner Nov. 19. Courtney’s first impression: “Mike seemed kind of grumpy.” Michael’s excuse: frustration from travel and traffic.
But at the wedding the next day, they had a great time together. By the end of the day, “Brooke’s mom said that we were arguing like a married couple,” Courtney quipped.
They parted as friends, and what started as a long-distance friendship became more by 2011.
“You can find love when you’re least expecting it,” Michael said. “We were just there to support our friends. Neither one of us was looking for a relationship.”
The two were dating long distance for more than a year, seeing each other at least once a month. They were determined to make it work, but Michael said, “Obviously there were some logistical difficulties.”
Eventually, Michael, now director of litigation technology at Aptus Court Reporting, joined Courtney, a freelance writer, in San Diego.
Michael proposed on March 21, 2014, at Mission Bay. He chose the setting because one of the first places Courtney took him when he visited San Diego for the first time was the now-closed Boardwalk Mission Beach restaurant. It was a place she liked to watch the University of Kansas Jayhawks, rivals of the University of Missouri Tigers.
Not quite a year and a half later, on Aug. 8, Michael and Courtney were married in a ceremony by the bay at The Dana on Mission Bay.
About 80 people attended the wedding; about 75 percent were from out of town — mostly from Kansas.
“It was the perfect size for us,” Courtney said.
The ceremony was officiated by Courtney’s brother-in-law. The bride and groom had only one attendant each: Brooke and Greg Moore.
Like the Moores, who live in North Park, Courtney and Michael planned a fun and casual wedding. They wanted the event to reflect who they are, keeping things simple, but pretty, Courtney said. They decided to forgo a wedding planner and instead visited a few wedding shows, finding photographer Katherine Evans of Katherine Beth Photography and florist Patti Silva of FlorAffair.
Going to wedding vendors can easily get overwhelming, Courtney said. But by sticking to small local companies and doing without some of the extras, such as elaborate table designs, she said she never felt stressed out.
“The most important thing for us was for everyone to come and have a great time,” she said. “We wanted it to be more about our guests and to have fun.”
In keeping with their laid-back style, Courtney chose a strapless dress with sand tones layered in soft chiffon folds over traditional white. “I wanted something a little bit different,” she said.
Because they both like Mexican food, the reception meal consisted of a Mexican buffet. They had a traditional three-tiered wedding cake and a groom’s cake, which were created by the Grove Pastry Shop in Lemon Grove. Each layer of the wedding cake was a different flavor, ranging from mango champagne to chocolate marble and cranberry orange. To pay homage to their love of the Beach Boys, the vanilla-flavored groom’s cake was designed like a vinyl album with a California Girls theme.
They found the band, Luck Devils Band, during one of the band’s free, public showcases. The high-energy music had everyone dancing, Courtney said. Because everyone had worked up an appetite, mini pizzas and cookies and milk were served to the guests before they went home.
It was the perfect ending to their day.

Martina Schimitschek is a freelance writer.

After missing for nearly four decades, wedding ring comes full circle

　　For the first time in 40 years Jim and Jane Flynn can wear the matching wedding rings they exchanged more than half a century ago.
　　The couple honeymooned at Lake George after their 1960 wedding and Jim grew up summering in a rented cabin in Cleverdale. As they were starting their family, Jim, a radiation oncologist, had his residency in the New York City metropolitan area and the couple made Lake George their annual vacation spot, eventually buying a property at Basin Bay on the west side of the lake in 1976. Since then the lakeside summer home has become a gathering place for their family, including three daughters and two grandchildren.
　　But shortly after they bought the property, Jim lost his gold wedding band to the lake, an all too familiar story for many couples.
　　“Sure I was upset,” said Jane, now in her late 70s, as she sat in the screened-in porch overlooking the lake. “It felt like he lost a part of our marriage.”
　　Peggy Rodman’s family also has a longtime gathering place next to the Flynn’s property. Every August she and her husband and three children travel from Seattle to Lake George for a vacation.
　　“I’m always thinking I’m going to find something really neat and I always find golf balls, or nothing really exciting,” Rodman said. “I’ve found sunglasses, a swim mask, nothing exciting.”
　　For 19 years she’s kept her eye out for buried treasure in the underwater lost and found.
One day this August she saw a circle glimmering on the lake bottom. It looked like an overturned bottle cap, but with smooth edges.
　　“I grabbed it. It wasn’t deep. I could still stand there,” she said.
　　It was a gold ring with a thick band and a Christian wedding symbol engraved on the outside. On the inside were initials and a date — “2-6-60.”
　　Other than a mark that seemed to show the ring had been partially buried in the lake bottom, the ring was untouched, the inscriptions clear.
　　Rodman knew a neighbor, Paula Higgins Abele, lived there year-round, so she gave it to her to see if she could reunite it with the owner.
　　“We had a couple friends lose rings over the years,” Abele said.
　　She posted it on the “Lake George NY Boaters” Facebook page, but there were no bites. She kept the date inscribed on the inside of the ring secret so only the true owner could claim it. For two days she carried it with her.
　　Then on a whim she asked one of the Flynns’ daughters who was visiting whether anyone there had lost a ring
　　“Not unless it’s a really wide one,” Abele recalled as her response.
　　Jim and Jane Flynn, in their late 70s, live in Tulsa, Oklahoma now. Jim had gone back for work, but Jane was in Lake George with her daughters when Paula showed them the ring. She had an immediate reaction.
　　“When I showed it to Mrs. Flynn, she recited the initials exactly, and the date,” Abele said.
　　Jane put the ring on her finger and hugged it close like a long-lost love.
　　“It’s hard to believe it could have been in the sand all that time and just go unnoticed. Something must have kicked it up at just the right time,” Abele said.
　　Their daughter Cassie Flynn, of Albany, said the ring had been lost so long her parents had long given up on finding it.
　　Jim said he can’t remember how he lost it. The couple has newer wedding bands they wear now.
　　“I had long forgotten that I had lost it,” Jim said. “It showed it had been sitting in silt. I think the fact that Lake George is freshwater helped with the preservation. There were no corrosives obviously in the lake that would do harm to gold.”
　　Coincidentally, one of the couple’s first memories is of Jim losing a ring while swimming.
　　“When we were courting, it was in August of 1959, and Jane’s family had a house on a little lake in Northern New Jersey called Lake Packanack,” Jim said.
　　Jane, a young nurse at the time, said it was the first party she had planned. She forgot to put an RSVP request on the invitations. Strangely enough, only Jim showed up — the medical student who she cared for when he was hospitalized with a chest condition.
　　“She was dressed in this gorgeous bathing suit, I’m sure to catch my eye, which worked,” he said of the red-headed woman who would become his wife.
　　He decided to pretend he couldn’t swim.
　　“I was telling her I’m really deathly afraid of the water. I don’t know how to swim. I’m afraid I’m not buoyant. Would you mind holding my hand when I get into the water?,” Jim said.
　　But she told him no and said he shouldn’t be afraid. It was shallow and there were lifeguards.
　　So he dove in and “swam out at a fearsome rate,” he said.
　　He came back without his Notre Dame class ring, which he hasn’t seen since.
　　“That was one of our first encounters. That was sort of a harbinger of things to come,” Jim laughed.
　　When Rodman heard the story, she was mystified.
　　“To me, it’s the coolest thing that ever happened to me. I think it’s so neat someone can lose something so long ago and find it. I’m just glad he has the ring back,” Rodman said.
　　Jim and Jane are back in Oklahoma now where Jim continues his work as a radiation oncologist.
　　As to what they’ll do with the rings, “that’s up to the boss,” he said.
　　The ring story is symbolic of what he said seemed to be the key to their lasting relationship.

　　“I just lucked out. I picked a great gal,” he said.

Davalos wedding raises money for charity

A wedding day: for most people, a day to make it all about themselves.
But Nikki and Anthony Davalos, who were married Sunday afternoon in Black Eagle Park, wanted a way to make their wedding about much more than the two of them.
So the Davaloses concocted the idea of the “Let’s Run Away Together” charity wedding and 5-kilometer race to raise money for some causes they care about.
“He’s a runner and I like being involved in the community — and we don’t need any gifts — so we thought we would just shove it all together, and if people wants to give us gifts we can give back somewhere else,” Nikki explained, arm-in-arm with Anthony, just across the finish line from the couple’s 5k stroll as newlyweds.
Black Eagle Park was already alive with the post-wedding facilities. Live music and food, and drinks (courtesy of VFW Post 1087), as well as raffle items benefiting different charities decorated the anything-but-traditional reception.
The 5k race — 20-some entrants ran to Black Eagle Dam and back from the park — raised money for the Young Parents Education Center in Great Falls.
Nikki had organized the rest, including a canned food and socks drive benefiting the Great Falls Rescue Mission.
“The main thing was just asking, seeing if people wanted to be a part of it. And from there it was just having fun putting it together,” she said. “… Everything just kind of came together. I would have a moment where I had an idea, and then I’d figure out how I could tie that in.”
Her new husband — Anthony is an avid runner, hence the 5k — was all about it. It’s a chance to give back to his home. (Anthony is originally from Texas, Nikki from California. Anthony is an airman in his fourth year serving at Malmstrom Air Force Base.)
“We’re not from here, but we live here,” Anthony explained. “We have some family here and stuff, but I think it was more to see if we could get people to come out and enjoy the day. It was our big day, but if we can get people to come out and enjoy it with us that’s even better.”
The music and refreshments were as much part of the reception as Nikki’s “community day” idea, open and welcoming to the public.
“We like that feeling when you go out in the summer and you’re in the grass and everybody is having a good time,” Nikki explained. “… You meet someone else and you laugh with them, and you don’t know them but you feel like you’ve known them for 20 years now. We just wanted that feeling at our wedding.”
The happy couple also extended an invitation for other couples to tie the knot with them (for a small fee with proceeds going to the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art), but no other couples took the step.
That didn’t mean Nikki was the only attendee wearing a wedding dress. Family friend Ace Williamson ran the 5k in a wedding dress and high heels and in the process raised $100 for the Mercy Home to help battered children.
“I figured those kids are always in pain, so I could do this for an hour in pain,” said Williamson, holding the remnants of a broken high-heeled shoe and walking gingerly but with a grin.
The inspiration? The bride.
“She’s a very caring person, and she’s always trying to do stuff in the community,” Williamson said. “I figured I’d give her a hand.”
And for Nikki and Anthony, watching people trickle in to have a good time while Black Eagle Park listened to the joyful sounds of a guitar and saxophone, that’s what it was all about.

“We weren’t sure what it would be like,” she said, “but we figured if people want to show up then that’s great. And if not, we would still have fun.”

Gun-toting guest who ruined bride’s ‘dream wedding’ blames hotel for fiasco

A guest who accidentally fired his gun during a Waldorf Astoria wedding says it’s not his fault the lavish party was canceled — the world-famous hotel is to blame.
Vladimir Gotlibovsky, whose 9mm Ruger went off at the reception in June, grazing a fellow wedding guest’s head, is now suing the hotel, claiming management overreacted in shutting down the celebration after the gunfire.
Gotlibovsky, who is being sued by bride Anna Goldshmidt for ruining her $750,000 “dream wedding,” says the Waldorf should have to fork over at least half of whatever the court awards the newlywed because the hotel “unilaterally and without justification canceled the reception.”
The Brooklyn liquor store owner “was not responsible for the cancellation of the wedding reception,” his lawyer, Christopher Chang, says in the filing.
“The fact of the matter is after the firearm discharged, the hotel was secure and the reception could have gone forward,” Chang told The Post.
A Waldorf spokesman did not return a request for comment.
Chang also said that since the couple’s parents paid for the June 13 affair, the newlyweds cannot sue to recoup the costs, just for emotional damages.
The bride would beg to differ.
She seethes in her suit that Gotlibovsky, a relative, was drunk and failed to holster his pistol even though he’d accidentally discharged it in the past.
The shooting caused her “severe embarrassment in front of all her friends, relatives and other guests.”
“Her dream wedding was canceled and can never be recaptured . . . there will never be a wedding album; [and] what was to be the happiest day of her life turned into a disaster,” the suit says.
The bride’s attorney, David Jaroslawicz, noted that Gotlibovsky’s case against the Waldorf “doesn’t talk about the fact that he handed [the gun off to his brother] and it disappeared,” meaning hotel management didn’t know it “was an accident and not a willful shooting.”
But Jaroslawicz agreed that the event shouldn’t have been called off. “I think they panicked and canceled it,” he said of the Waldorf, noting that security could have screened guests as they moved from the lobby reception to the ballroom.

Gotlibovsky had a gun permit and has not been criminally prosecuted over the incident.

Local videographer surprised by viral wedding dance video

The week of Aug. 17, an 8-minute-long video of a groom, Kirk Henning, and his groomsmen performing a choreographed dance for the bride, Valerie Tellman, began to sweep the nation.
The video, which was filmed by King William resident Ginger Topham, received over 4 million views on YouTube and was picked up by CNN, Fox News, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition, among other media sources.
The groom and his groomsmen performed the dance for the bride at the reception, which took place at Center Stage Richmond following the wedding ceremony that was held at The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.
“Thankfully, the groom, Kirk, he let me in on the surprise at the ceremony,” Topham said. “Of course, I had talked about a lot of the wedding day details with the bride, but she didn’t know about it [the dance].”
The reception venue was particularly special because the groom and the bride both danced at Center Stage for the Richmond Ballet, according to Topham.
A few of the groomsmen also are professional dancers.
Topham, who has 10 years of videographer experience, placed the video on YouTube and was surprised after posting that the number of views continued to climb.
“I mean, I’ve definitely filmed some great dances, but this one was so unique,” Topham said. “The video going viral on YouTube — I’ve never had so many views, so that was really exciting.”
Topham said she is thrilled that her video garnered so much attention and was excited to be part of such an experience.
“I think just being visible on so many well-known television networks and programs is always a good thing, so I think that’s — yeah, it definitely would help,” Topham said. “It’s always good in your business to have your name out there so I think that’s definitely helpful.”
Topham works with her father, Mike Topham, at the family-owned business, Mike Topham Photography, which is located in Mechanicsville.

She did say she was unaware of the groom’s plans when she showed up to film the wedding and reception.

Former co-worker's wedding turns into Journal-Standard reunion

For the more than 25 years that I worked at The Journal-Standard, I made a lot of friends with many co-workers that came and went on to other things. I have remained friends with many of them with the help of Facebook.
Many of my years at J-S were like spending days with friends who became family. The local newspaper fostered a diverse group of personalities, but through it all, so many of us were close. We cared about each other, becoming like family because of the long hours that we used to work.
This past weekend, two of those friends, Joe Tamborello and Tiffany Albright, got married at a beautiful outdoor wedding in Rockford. This is a couple who met while Joe worked at the paper. Tiffany met Joe through mutual friends, and I have been blessed to watch a couple’s love grow to the point of the groom shedding a few tears as his bride walked down the aisle at their wedding. Of course, I cried when I saw Joe cry.
Not only was this a wedding of two friends, but a reunion of those of us who worked together over the past 10 years. None of us still work at the newspaper, but we talked about the gold-old days, shared a few laughs and, above all else, caught up with each other’s lives.
In all, there were 14 of us who shared roots with this local newspaper. It was Joe, Tiffany, Dave, Stefanie, Scott, Nick, Cara, Joey, Adam, Jeremy, Brett, Jeff, Ann and I who posed for the photo to document that we were all there for the camaraderie of a wedding — a photo of what may be the last time we're all together. I soaked it up.
My career with J-S has always been about telling stories for the readers, but personally, I shared much of it with my professional family. We spent a lot of years laughing, crying and venting with each other.
While I have gone on to another job, I still remain a part of the newspaper that I have always loved. The friends I hugged the other night spoke of fond memories of their days at The Journal-Standard, but what we talked about most was friendship. Even though many of us are spread out over this country, we met to witness the love of a couple and recapture treasured friendships.
It was a night I was so excited for and one that I treasure as yet another great memory shared with friends.

And by the way, congrats to Joe and Tiffany Tamborello, who now live in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Can same-sex marriage revive Las Vegas’ wedding industry?

Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States was just a few days old. Dawn Ellen Wise and her partner of 13 years, Teresa Jo Gifford, were packed and ready to vacation in Las Vegas.
Wise thought it would be a thrill to get married in Las Vegas, having seen movies and TV shows about wild and memorable Vegas weddings, but she didn’t know if Gifford shared her feelings. So she kept quiet on the subject.
Lucky for her, Gifford spoke up.
“Hey, we’re going to Vegas,” Gifford said. “Do you want to get married there?”
It was decided. The Kentucky natives would have a Vegas wedding.
For the Las Vegas wedding industry, couples like Wise and Gifford offer hope for a better financial future after years of steady decline.
In the past decade, the city’s wedding industry has dropped by about 40 percent — a major blow considering the business generated about $2 billion for Clark County.
To stop the wedding free-fall, the Clark County Commission increased the marriage license fee to $77 from $60 with the intention of using the bulk of the extra revenue on marketing and advertising to try to restore Las Vegas to its marriage glory days. Meanwhile, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the local wedding industry is expecting an infusion of business from LGBT couples.
But how much of a difference will same-sex marriage make for the industry’s bottom line? Opinions vary.
According to a 2014 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA, as many as 3,570 same-sex couples in Nevada may choose to marry in the next three years. That could generate as much as $52 million in expenditures to the state and local economy in wedding arrangements and tourist activities such as lodging and food.
The study does not include same-sex couples who may travel to Las Vegas to get married. Christy Mallory, senior counsel for the Williams Institute, said the biggest help would be the potential $4.2 million Nevada stands to gain in sales tax revenue from same-sex marriages.
“It’s not just the businesses that have something to gain,” Mallory said. “What’s huge is that there’s money coming from out of state.”
But there are skeptics who doubt same-sex marriages will be a cure-all for Las Vegas’ wedding industry.
Kathryn Hamm, publisher of Wedding Wire’s gayweddings.com, says same-sex couples, just like plenty of straight couples, often want a romantic ceremony. The 24/7 party scene and infamous slogan, “What happens here, stays here,” does little to promote that.
“Las Vegas has the spas and really great entertainment, but that predominant marketing isn’t about romance,” Hamm said. “It’s about play and adult entertainment. I think any city that is promoting itself can be multiple things, but if there’s something popular and particular to that destination, it’s very difficult to sell something else counter to that.”
But Hamm stressed same-sex wedding ceremonies wouldn’t necessarily have to be Las Vegas’ forte.
“That’s not to say there isn’t a market,” she said. “There are opportunities for honeymoons and bachelor and bachelorette parties.”
Ann Parsons, marketing director of Vegas Weddings, said the city could specialize in vow renewals, as well.
“Seventy-five percent of the people coming to Vegas are married already,” she said. “We could become the vow-renewal capital of the world. That’s another untapped market that needs education.”
David Paisley, research director for Community Marketing Inc., a research-and-marketing firm that studies the demographics of the LGBT community’s economic impact, said Las Vegas should market not only to tourists but valley residents as well.
“If I was a hotel, I would market to my local community first because local people are more likely to get married in their home state,” he said. “I think Las Vegas is unique because it can have both.”
Las Vegas is no stranger to LGBT marketing. In fact, it trailed only New York and San Francisco in last year’s Community Marketing Inc. survey on LGBT marketing.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority started marketing to the community in the early 2000s. The LVCVA connects members with LGBT events, on and off the Strip.
“The LGBT community was a little bit more recession-proof,” said Jim McMichael, LVCVA’s specialty markets manager. “They tend to have a propensity to travel.”
Between June 2014 and June 2015, LGBT travelers to Las Vegas spent an estimated $11.8 million, according to McMichael. And that’s just convention travel.
“Traditionally, gay couples have no kids,” Paisley said. “Anyone who doesn’t have children is more likely to travel.”
A 2014 survey by Consumer Marketing found that from 2013 to 2014, traveling increased by 32 percent among the LGBT community.
Bob Witeck, president of communications firm Witeck Communications, which specializes in the gay and lesbian consumer market, said the best bet for Las Vegas is for the city to understand same-sex couples’ behavior, regardless of what aspect of the wedding industry it chooses to emphasize.
“Oftentimes if they’re not partnered, gay people like to travel in groups,” Witeck said. “(Las Vegas is) the kind of spot that might lend itself to spending time together. It just gives enough entertainment options.”
Gaming companies like Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International, which for years have marketed to the LGBT community, have reaped the benefits.
When Caesars Entertainment performed same-sex weddings at the Linq’s High Roller, it was a big hit. MGM is now in its sixth year of hosting Pride 48, the home of the LGBT podcasting community.
Even small-business owners have seen profits increase. Maria Romano, a licensed minister, has made it clear on her website that same-sex couples are welcome.
“You really have to put yourself in your clients’ shoes,” Romano said. “This is an important day and you really have to feel the love that they feel.”
Hand in hand, Wise and Gifford frolic down the aisle and outside of Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel. Their white tailcoats flutter in the wind as they turn toward the chapel to read the flashing sign: “Married 7-14-15, Teresa and Dawn.”
The two share a kiss, while onlookers applaud and cheer.

“We were truly shocked at how we were treated,” Gifford said. “It’s truly different from Kentucky.”

Great Falls couple gears up for wedding with charitable acts around community

In one week, Anthony Davalos and Nikki Emerson will tie the knot at Black Eagle Park.
“We just kind of decided that we are old and we don’t need a regular wedding, we don’t need the gifts and we did not know what else we would really do with it. He is an avid runner and I am really avid in the community. We just thought it would be really great if we could actually do it for a cause, instead of making it a traditional all about us wedding. And it’s actually turned out to be a lot more fun that way,” Emerson said.
For the past few months they have been gearing up for their wedding through charitable acts.
In the spring they helped mow, pick up trash, and repaint the playground toys in the Black Eagle Park.
Also, the couple raised 325 dollars and purchased 13 bags for foster care children.
“And then we got with Sunnyside Elementary School, there third graders did an amazing job with paying it forward. They did 5,697 pay it forward. And they also draw a brunch of really nice pictures to be put in some of the assisted living homes and hospital. So we are still working on getting some of those out because there was so many of them. They did a great job,” Emerson said.
And next Sunday they'll give back through the wedding.
They plan to have a 5k fun run, a sock drive to help the Great Falls Rescue Mission, and to collect food.
The couple are asking community members to come out and enjoy their big day.
"It’s a fun run so we are handing out prizes for the tackiest dressed cause you have to have a tacky person at the wedding. And you got to have an ugly bridesmaid dress. So we will be giving out random prizes for people who are dressed up like they are not supposed to be. You are supposed to be a wedding crasher that day. There is supposed to be a guy running in a wedding dress. He is taking pledges for the Children's Receiving Home, so I don't know if you can get any tackier than a wedding dress,” Emerson said.
The wedding start at 2:30 in the afternoon next Sunday followed by the 5K Fun Run, which will be starting at 3:30 p.m.
There will be live music, food vendors, a raffle, and there will also be boxes for donations.
“The day of we will actually have boxes for the sock drive and a box for the canned foods,” Emerson said.

The couple is asking for volunteers to help with set up from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. and tear down after the celebration is over.

Lost in One Burglary: Heirlooms, a Wedding Ring and a Sense of Security

Bit by bit, the 28-year-old bride-to-be absorbed the telltale signs of the burglary of her Brooklyn apartment: The gouge in the doorframe where the intruder had shoved a crowbar to get inside, the police officers talking in the dining room and, beyond them, her ransacked bedroom with the contents of her dresser drawers piled on the bed.
It was Aug. 24, and Rachel Tepper, who is getting married on Sunday, stood amid the wreckage taking mental snapshots of the crime scene, struggling to inventory what had vanished and, worse, what she might not yet know was gone.
The value of the loss transcended money: Her digital cameras and lenses with which she makes her living; a wedding ring for her fiancé, Jon Paley; a diamond cocktail ring bequeathed by her maternal grandmother; and a bejeweled gold hummingbird necklace passed down by her paternal grandmother — gifts from matriarchs to a sole female grandchild.
For months since her engagement over a year ago, Ms. Tepper dreamed of the distinctive family heirlooms that would accompany her white wedding dress.
But in the days since the break-in, she has shoved aside a frenzy of nuptials’ planning — deciding on centerpieces, finalizing a menu and filling in seating assignments — to scan Craigslist and eBay obsessively, she said, “like a crazy person,” in the hopes a thief might peddle her belongings online.
With her wedding day almost here, she has had no such luck.In a city where crime is often measured in people killed, shot, robbed or raped, burglary is perceived as a lesser crime. But psychologically, its wounds can be just as traumatizing and lasting, victims and mental health experts say.
As Ms. Tepper, an editor at Yahoo Food, said in recounting her story in interviews this week: “I’m just so sad.”
“I’ve started having nightmares,” she added, “about people breaking into my apartment.”
In one, someone screams her name from a hallway. In another, the door to the third-floor apartment in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood, where she and Mr. Paley, 28, a documentary filmmaker, have lived for nearly three years, rattles like a ghost.
Unlike most perpetrators, who must interact with their victims to commit their crimes, burglars studiously avoid confrontation, criminologists say. But, as a result, their misdeeds leave much to be imagined, and victims are left wondering over the missing links in the chain of events. Trying to sleuth who did it, and how, can be maddening, and can bring about some degree of shame or self-criticism for steps not taken: Should I have installed a better deadbolt? Bought a dog?
Dread about the crime never being solved creeps in.
“I’ve been burglarized, and it generates a sense of vulnerability, of penetration of whatever bubble you put around yourself,” said Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist and professor of urban systems at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “Among property crimes, it conveys the most sense of personal invasion. After all, your home is a sanctuary.”
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyWhen Mr. Blumstein’s home was burglarized in the late 1990s, the thief went through a window into his second-floor bedroom and took jewelry from a dresser.
“We had a lot of stuff that was quite personal,” said Mr. Blumstein, adding that no one has ever been arrested. “Burglaries are hard to solve. Either you catch the guy in the act or with the property. They don’t come in and do a DNA check for burglaries.”
Burglaries in New York this year have dropped sharply to 9,600 through Sunday, from 10,907 in the same period a year ago, part of an overall decline in crime, according to Police Department statistics. Yet in the 76th Precinct, which covers Carroll Gardens, burglaries have spiked: to 101 from 59 a year ago, a 71 percent increase.
More than a quarter of the cases were believed to be the work of a single career criminal, now 58, whom detectives caught in the act in April, a police official said. Burglaries subsided for a time. But they have recently picked up again, including eight cases that investigators believe share a pattern.
“Monday through Friday, during the daytime and in the front door,” said the police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation.
Precinct commanders, who believe people in the neighborhood are behind the burglaries, have done a “burglary awareness campaign,” in the community, the official said, and have deployed extra officers from the narcotics unit and neighboring precincts.
A woman in Ms. Tepper’s neighborhood who lives near the intersection of Court and Nelson Streets, emailed Ms. Tepper to tell her that her home had also been recently burglarized in the middle of the day, an experience that had left her unable to sleep. The thief took cuff links that belonged to a grandfather she had never met and that she had hoped to give to a husband someday.
At Ms. Tepper’s building, on Third Street, the burglar struck in a period of about 40 minutes that Monday afternoon, said Samantha Babbitt, whose apartment next to Ms. Tepper’s was also hit.
“I went to Whole Foods at about 1:15 and was back by about 2,” Ms. Babbitt, 30, said. “I think these burglars have a good sense of targeting these buildings where a lot of young professionals, who work, live.”
Her theory is that the criminals are scouting poorly secured buildings to find weak spots — open windows or flimsy locks — which Samuel Walker, an emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said was an age-old tactic.
That is how they burglarized his house in the 1970s.
Like Ms. Tepper, Ms. Babbitt has been searching for her stolen jewelry.
“I’ve been going to pawn shops myself to see what pops up,” she said. “Nothing yet.”
On Wednesday, Ms. Tepper and Mr. Paley posted a message on their wedding website asking guests to refrain from talking about the burglary. They got in their car on Thursday night and headed to Maryland, where their wedding will be held. After that, they will travel to Japan and Myanmar for a three-week honeymoon.

“This is my wedding, and I don’t get a do-over in life,” Ms. Tepper said. “This has consumed me, and I know I have to put it away.”

'My new husband ran off with one of our wedding guests'

A bride who had been engaged to the love of her life for seven years was dumped just three months after finally getting married - when the groom ran off with a wedding guest.
Heartbroken Michelle Young, from Andover, Hampshire, was left in tatters after Alan Hoffman, 36, ran off with his work colleague Gemma Hadley.
Despite the trauma, 29-year-old Michelle, who works as an administrator, says she is trying to maintain a dignified approach and is focused on 'moving on' with the rest of her life.
It was love at first sight when Michelle was set up on a blind date with Alan, who was a former infantry soldier, in January 2004.
'I worked in Clinton Cards in Basingstoke at the time, and my colleague knew Alan and thought we would get on well,' she said. 'We met up, and went to the cinema and out for dinner afterwards.
'As an ex-army infantry soldier, Alan was loud and proud, while I was much more shy and retiring - but surprisingly we got on like a house on fire. Our relationship progressed and it wasn't long before we moved in together.'
Eleven months later, on Christmas Day 2004, Alan proposed.
'He gave me several different shaped boxes and in the smallest box was a beautiful gold band with three diamonds. I was over the moon. When I saw the ring I almost cried. I was so happy - I couldn't wait to marry him,' said Michelle.
It was six years before the couple finally set a date and Michelle spent a whole year excitedly planning her dream wedding.
'We moved to Bournemouth in 2010, so we decided on Bournemouth Town Hall for the ceremony and booked a local bowls club for the reception,' she said.
'Although I was a little nervous, I had waited a long time for this day. Alan and I were finally tying the knot after being engaged for seven years so it was a big deal to me.
'We invited 70 of our closest family and friends to the event and I made everything myself, including the invitations, table decorations and the wedding favours.
'I chose a beautiful sweetheart neckline gown, and my work colleagues helped to make me a wedding cake.'
Alan was a shelf-stacker at the local Sainsbury's, and got on so well with his work colleagues that he asked if he could invite them to his big day.
'He often spoke about his colleagues as they all got on so well,' Michelle said. 'So when he asked if he could invite a group of them to the wedding, I instantly said yes.
'I told him it would be lovely to have them there. I thought it was nice that he wanted them to be part of our day.'
And although Michelle was fine with Alan inviting his colleagues to the wedding, she admits that alarm bells rang in her head when Alan mentioned that his colleague Gemma, 27, was going to be there.
Michelle and Alan got hitched in September 2012 and had seven bridesmaids and three page boys. Their first dance was to Something Right by Westlife.
'The day was absolutely perfect,' she said. 'We exchanged vows in front of everyone who was important to us. I'd never been happier but I couldn't help but notice when Alan kept disappearing to talk to his colleagues, including Gemma, who kept glancing over at me.
'I tried to push any worries out of my head. He was probably just checking they were having a good time. Besides, he'd just married me.'
But the ink had barely dried on their marriage certificate when Alan started to change. Within a few weeks he became distant and less interested in sex.
'At first I thought it was because we worked alternating shifts, but soon he started dropping Gemma into conversation more and more,' said Michelle.
'They were seeing a lot of each other. My instincts told me that something wasn't right. I didn't want to make a fuss, but I felt threatened by Gemma.
'She was younger, slimmer and prettier than me. And I didn't feel comfortable with the idea of her and Alan being alone together in my flat. I tentatively asked Alan if there was something between them but he laughed it off. She also had a boyfriend, so Alan said he thought the idea was ludicrous.
'But although Alan always insisted there was nothing going on between them, I couldn't help feeling jealous by their friendship. I just tried to bury my feelings about it.'
But in January 2013 - less than four months after they married - Alan came home from work one day and said they needed to talk. It was then he admitted that he no longer loved Michelle - and had feelings for Gemma instead.
'He was stood by the sink, pretending to wash some dishes, when he blurted out the horrible truth,' Michelle said. 'He just said: 'I don't love you anymore,'and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
'He said things just weren't right and that they hadn't been right for ages, and that I felt more like his sister than his wife.
'His words hit hard - but I knew he was telling the truth, I could tell it in the way he spoke. But I also knew there was more to it than that. I asked him if he had feelings for anyone else, and he nodded. That's when I asked him if it was Gemma, and he nodded again. Devastation engulfed me.'
Although he swore nothing had happened between them, Alan admitted to Michelle that he had spoken to Gemma about his feelings for her - and that she felt the same.
'He said he wanted to see where things led with her,' Michelle said. 'I was heartbroken. We had only been married for a few months and already Alan was leaving me for somebody else.
'There was so much running through my head. I wasn't sure if I believed what he was saying - how could you just leave your wife and partner of eight years for your work colleague who you had never even kissed?
'It was made worse when friends of ours then told me that they had seen Gemma and Alan out and about together on a few occasions - they obviously couldn't keep away from each other.'
Despite her heartbreak, Michelle decided to take the dignified approach and tried to keep on good terms with Alan - even offering to move out so he didn't have to. She moved in with her best friend Toni and kept in touch with Alan.
Within a few months, he admitted to Michelle that Gemma had broken up with her boyfriend and that they were seeing each other.
Now, two years on, Alan is still with Gemma, while Michelle is waiting for her divorce to come through.
'I was gutted at the time - it meant my marriage was well and truly over,' she said. 'I'm moving on but when I flick through my wedding photos, and look at all three of us smiling for the camera, it still breaks my heart.'
Speaking about his split from Michelle, Alan said: 'Before we were married it was pretty much over between us anyway. I was just too scared to not go through with it (the wedding). She had spent so much time setting it all up it just felt as though I couldn't back out of it.
'I liked Gemma before the wedding, but it wasn't until after the wedding that we realised how much we liked each other. Around the Christmas period it felt like it was all a big farce really, I realised that even though I was married to Michelle, I didn't want to be with her because I had feelings for somebody else.
'I just remember coming back from work one day and standing at the kitchen sink and telling her that I didn't love her and didn't want to be with her any more. She said to me: 'Is there someone else?' and I just said yeah.'
Gemma, who is still in a relationship with Alan, stresses that the pair were not romantically involved at his wedding. She said: 'Alan and I were only ever work colleagues while he was married and dating Michelle. When both of our relationships broke off that's when we decided to take it one step further, into an intimate relationship.
'Michelle always had a problem with Alan having female friendships, especially if those women were of a slimmer build than her. I attended their wedding in a group of co-workers.
'I feel saddened that Michelle has used me as a scapegoat for the breakdown of her marriage but I'm sure there were other factors that resulted in their relationship breaking down which didn't involve me.

'Me and Alan are still happily together and as much as Michelle obviously hasn't moved on I do wish her all the best and happiness for the future.'

DAD PENS POIGNANT WEDDING DAY LETTER TO DAUGHTER WITH DOWN SYNDROME

A father's words of encouragement to his daughter with Down syndrome are going viral after he put pen to paper in honor of her wedding day.
"You and Ryan are taking a different walk together," Paul Daugherty wrote to his daughter Jillian. "It's a new challenge, but it's no more daunting for you than anyone else. Given who you are, it might be less so."
Daugherty wrote the letter for TheMighty.com, a website dedicated to empowering people with disability and disease. Though the letter was penned after his daughter's big day, Daugherty said it's filled with messages he's already shared with his daughter. In part the letter reads:
"Dear Jillian,
It is the afternoon of your wedding. June 27, 2015. In two hours, you will take the walk of a lifetime, a stroll made more memorable by what you've achieved to get to this day. I don't know what the odds are of a woman born with Down syndrome marrying the love of her life. I only know you've beaten them."
He goes on to describe Jillian's preparations for the wedding with her mom and bridesmaid in the bridal suite. He says he achieved pure bliss on his daughter's big day.
He then reminisces about Jillian's childhood, saying he never worried about what she could achieve, despite the naysayers.
"Do you remember all the stuff they said you'd never do, Jills?" the letter reads. "You wouldn't ride a two-wheeler or play sports. You wouldn't go to college. You certainly wouldn't get married. Now ... look at you."
"It was magical," he told ABC of the ceremony. "We had 125 guests, and every single one of them had helped Jillian get to that day. It really does take a village, especially when you're talking about a child with a disability."
Daugherty told ABC he hopes the letter will help others see people with Down syndrome in a new light.
"Those who have taken the time to SEE Jillian, rather than simply LOOK at her, have benefited from the relationship, and rewarded with a lifetime friend," he said. "Do not look at my daughter, and define her by her appearance. See her, and allow her to define herself. "
As for Jillian and Ryan's relationship, Daugherty said it is truly pure.
"They live their love every day," he said. "It's all natural, unfiltered by agendas or guile."

Daugherty wrote about his journey parenting Jillian in his book, "Uncomplicated Life."

Should fashion companies let social media influence what's hot and what's not?

Understanding your customer has been key to business success since day dot. But where those customers were once happy to put up and shut up with what was on offer, they've now been given a voice by the internet – and aren't afraid to use it. Smart retailers have cottoned on to this new version of people power, and are embracing it as a way to propel their businesses using the internet to access information in an unobtrusive way like never before.
"Across our different markets, we know things like what time our customers are shopping: for example, in Japan, they rarely shop during work hours and in Germnay they like to shop on a Sunday," explains Stephanie Horton, chief marketing officer of Farfetch.com.
In addition, social media means that we freely share our likes and dislikes, providing valuable instant feedback. "The fashion industry used to be very inaccessible to the end consumer," Anita Barr, fashion director of Harvey Nichols, says. "But now customers can get a level of access that they never would have before. They are more informed than ever, which has empowered them, and they also have the platforms to share this information along with their opinions and views. Social media is an important listening tool and Twitter is one of our biggest platforms."
No matter the platform, there are passive and active ways to engage with a brand, and customers are increasingly opting for the latter. Recently, both Topshop and Victoria's Secret have responded to customer protests on social media about the body image they are promoting.
If Laura Berry had been frustrated by the diminutive size of Topshop's mannequins 10 years ago, she would probably have complained to someone in the store; maybe she would have been taken seriously, but one dissenting voice is easy to ignore. But it was in 2015, and, as is the modern way, Berry voiced her frustrations through social media. Berry's message on Topshop's Facebook page was liked more than 3,000 times and generated over 700 comments.
Topshop took notice, responding through Facebook: "We have taken yours and other customers' opinions and feedback on board and going forward we are not placing any further orders on this style of mannequin. The views of our customers are extremely valuable and we apologise if we have not lived up to the levels of service that we aim to deliver." That Topshop's Facebook page has over four million likes of its own proves how important social media is to the modern brand, especially one focused on a young customer.
"Brands are a lot more answerable than they used to be," says Graeme Moran, fashion editor of Drapers. "The power of social media has really given everyone a voice and in that sense shifted the power. Brands have to react because something going viral can be a lot more damaging nowadays."
Luxury-goods brands aren't immune to people power, either. Last month, Hermès launched an investigation into reports of malpractice at one of the crocodile farms that provides skins for its celebrated Birkin bags. After the animal-rights group Peta released a video detailing the alleged abuse, Jane Birkin herself issued a statement asking Hermès to "debaptise" the crocodile version of her namesake bag. Hermès swiftly responded, explaining they would investigate immediately, but would the outcome have been the same without Birkin's involvement?
Post-recession, brands and retailers are increasingly conscious of how best to court customers – engage with them now and retain them for the future – and the rise of social media appears to provide the answer. "The power is very much with the customer," says Sarah Watson, vice president of social commerce at Net-a-porter.com. "Whether it's a recommendation, a written review or an endorsement by a celebrity or influencer, the more informed the customer, the more empowered they are.
The knock-on effect of this is that they can drive retailers to change, in a way that suits them – from delivery times to quality of products to service." While the company has always been customer focused, thanks to its recently launched social app, The Net Set, the team is able to access intelligent insight like never before: "Previously, information could be gathered by analysing activity across social channels, but now it's concentrated on our own platform it's far easier to spot emerging trends and update our strategy accordingly."
For smaller scale businesses, who can't necessarily afford to conduct traditional market research, an immediate connection to the customer is invaluable – and benefits both parties. Look at Craig Green: the menswear designer debuted womenswear for spring/summer 16 in response to female customers all but begging for a range of their own.
When British brand Finery launched at the end of last year, it immediately struck a chord, thanks in part to that customer research. "The idea for Finery was very much grounded in a customer profile," says Caren Downie, founder and brand director. "We feel tangibly connected to the women who shop with us. It's such a pleasure to see how engaged our audience is – we receive emails every week from customers."

That positive feedback is gratifying, but designers shouldn't let it rule their work, Moran says. "The joy of direct feedback is that you can get the positive and the negative right away. But brands need to evolve from the positive, rather than just churning out what has been popular, or the customer will get bored. High street brands can be a lot more reactive, so that instant feedback is really helpful in shaping what they do on a much faster and smaller scale. They can make changes or back emerging trends much quicker, so customer engagement can be a lot more powerful."