Bride does flurry of rescheduling to wed before blizzard
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — Giddy Straus and Elana Lev had planned their wedding for Tuesday — during what turned out to be the worst snowstorm of the winter.
The emergency medical technicians had reserved the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel for a 6 p.m. ET ceremony and reception with 150 guests.
On Sunday, catering and hotel staff told them they had two options: Move the wedding to Monday at 5 p.m. or wait until the end of the month.
"We were not about to wait," Straus said.
The groom, who owns Rockland Urgent Care in West Haverstraw, N.Y., was at work all day Sunday while Lev worked the phones.
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And then their luck changed. Every vendor was available a day early: hotel; florist; wedding band; and the photographer, who canceled another event to make Monday work, Lev said. The hair and makeup artist fit the bride in Monday morning.
"The caterer said, 'I think I'm half-ready,' and I said, 'I need to know if you're ready or not because, if not, I have to get Chinese or something," Lev said
Chinese. At a Jewish wedding. That's the kind of girl Straus married.
"It's definitely going to be something to remember," he said Monday morning, hours before promising to love, honor and cherish his bride.
Straus, who lives in Spring Valley,, N.Y., and Lev, who lives in Monsey, N.Y., had set the date back in October.
"It'll be nice," Straus said he remembers thinking. "It'll be in Tarrytown by the water. No problems, no nothing. Everything will go according to plan. It's going to be a good time. And lo and behold. You can't make this stuff up."
They might have been nervous before Friday — in a wedding jitters sort of way — but not until Friday did the forecast start to concern them.
"Sunday morning I was at work and the caterer called and said, 'This can't happen,' " Straus said. "And the Double Tree was like, 'This can't happen.'
"All we had to do was call every one of our guests and say, 'By the way, the party's changed,' " he said.
The 150 or so guests were mostly from around New York City, except the bride's family, which is from Phoenix. Lev's father arrived on a red-eye flight at 5 a.m. Monday. Some folks came from Baltimore, about 200 miles to the southwest.
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They did have to make other concessions to the storm.
"We were going to get married then spend a night in a hotel, but now we're just going to come home to Monsey," Straus said before getting hitched. "We didn't want to get snowed in in some hotel."
The overnight stay can wait until a less apocalyptic time, the groom said.
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, two hours before what was to be their wedding, Tarrytown had received more than a foot of snow, according to the National Weather Service. Straus marveled at Lev's can-do attitude.
"She is a stand-up, independent woman who is capable of doing anything she sets her mind to," Straus said with a little awe in his voice. They met at Spring Hill Community Ambulance Corps in Spring Valley.
"She can do anything, this girl," he said. "This girl is fantastic."
The happy couple seemed relieved the decision was made even if they seemed to have a different perspective on how it all came together.
"I don't know what it is," Straus said. "I plan for everything, contingencies and consequences. But I also let things roll as they roll. This was something that was like, 'You've got to be kidding me.' "
Lev took a different view.
"Giddy gets no credit for this," she said with a laugh. "He was working all day yesterday. I took care of everything."
Her tone suggested that Straus might continue to prove his wisdom — and have a long, happy marriage — by giving his wife every ounce of the credit.
"I'm a keeper," Lev said with a smile. "He's so lucky he doesn't even know."
Follow Peter D. Kramer on Twitter: @PeterKramer
