Amy and I met in college at SUNY Oneonta (go Red Dragons!) and shared many laughs and drinks together at the baseball house, where we frequented. To be fair, we were both dating boys on the team. She’s someone who is always down to have a good time but is not over the top about things. Therefore, when I saw she got engaged last summer, I envisioned her wedding being intimate and super fun with delicious food and flowing drinks. Needless to say, it was exactly that, but scaled down significantly.
Bride: Amelia (Amy) Lentz
Groom: Michael Tagliaferro
Wedding Date:
April 18, 2020
Wedding Venue:
The roof of our apartment
How did you and your partner meet? Tell me your story:
After I moved to NYC in 2016, a friend kept asking me to meet up and, more often than not, mentioning that ‘her friend Mike’ would be there too.
Every time she said it I internally thought, ‘That’s cool I guess, but I don’t really care about your friend Mike…’ And then I met her friend Mike.
I’d skipped out on a Sunday Funday on Fire Island (at which *her friend Mike* had been in attendance) so I suggested a make-up date. She reserved a table for happy hour at a place near my office. As I was on my way out the door to meet her, she texted me that she was running late and asked if I could go and hold down the reservation to which, of course, I said yes. Then she replied “Cool, my friend Mike will be there too.”
As someone absolutely riddled with social anxiety, I seriously contemplated bailing. But I went, and I met her friend Mike. By the time she showed up (almost an hour late) history was already in the making.
What were your original wedding plans pre-pandemic?
Neither of us wanted to do something big. We found a small, beautiful church in the same area of the city where we first met and planned to do a ceremony with just immediate family, plus each of our childhood best friends. Following the ceremony, we had dinner reservations at the same restaurant where that fateful happy hour had happened almost four years ago. After that, we reserved the third floor of a local bar where we planned a fun celebration with about 50 of our friends.
How do you choose to move forward with getting married vs. rescheduling to a later date?
Well, I guess we’re sort of doing both. We held out hope up until about two weeks before the big day. We figured if things started to settle down, it would be a critical time to support our community by maintaining the appointments with our vendors to patronize many of those who had been unable to conduct their business over the last month.
But the city clerk’s office actually closed on the day we were going to finalize our marriage license application. My little brother was stuck in North Carolina. The church wouldn’t be open. We had to postpone. We were truly heartbroken.
A week before what would’ve been the big day, our friends suggested we do something to honor the day anyway. I suppose you could call it “faux-lopement”. We didn’t have a license, we didn’t have a minister, we didn’t have our families present – but we did have an extra dress (thanks to my indecisiveness) and some creative, loving people who made the day so special for us.
Tell me a little bit about the experience you had on your wedding day!
Doing something informal and last minute, I wasn’t envisioning much. I figured we could get dressed up and walk around Central Park, and have our friend Monique snap a few photos on her iPhone. As for the ceremony, I pictured maybe just a few lights strewn about the roof. Mo and I got ready while face-timing my matron of honor, Stephanie, who also got all dressed up for the virtual affair.
After getting ready, we went to the park to meet Mike and his best friend Nick. As we were in the midst of a pandemic, the park was uncharacteristically empty, though there were a few people around who cheered for us! And Monique actually enlisted a photographer friend to come shoot for us (from a 6ft distance, of course), which was so nice – we were able to get some pictures of all of us together.
When it came time for the ceremony, instead of just a few lights, Monique had gotten tons of flowers from Trader Joe’s, worked with Steph to create arrangements with them, ordered a garden arch online (and somehow it got delivered in time?!), and thousands of twinkle lights. She created a total fairyland.
Nick unofficially officiated. He and Steph both gave sweet speeches before handing it over to us to recite the promises we had written for one another and exchange rings.
The ceremony was followed by a champagne toast over Zoom with our families (whom we did need to reassure that it was NOT an official marriage yet – we couldn’t truly seal the deal without them!)
Afterwards, Mike, Nick, Mo and I ordered a pizza and went back up to the roof to bask in the wonderland. We were overwhelmingly happy and grateful.
What wedding vendors did you use? Anything special to tell me about them?
If I haven’t gushed enough about it already, Monique was really the only “vendor” we had or needed. She did such an amazing job of pulling it together, and on such short notice. She also organized a “back-up bachelorette” after my trip to the Dominican Republic was cancelled in late March. She really went above and beyond for us and deserves all the recognition I can give her!!
Are there one or two specific details you want to highlight?
The day was forecasted to be rainy and cold, so instead of wearing cute bridal shoes…I was wearing these brown rubber rain boots (and a jacket). The boots looked pretty goofy, but they worked!
Any advice to future couples who are still unsure of whether or not they are going to reschedule their weddings from this year or have rescheduled already?
It’s a tough call, and the situation is different for every couple.But you’ve put all this time and money, stress and energy into an event that means so much to you. There were (and still are) so many bigger things going on globally, and people being affected by the pandemic in more serious ways, and it was really hard for us to take a second to mourn our own thing without feeling guilty. If you make the decision to reschedule, my only advice is to know that it’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to not always feel positive or optimistic. We were able to make the best of things and you will too!
Any advice to future couples about the whole “getting married” thing?
Well, first I want to note that while it isn’t technically legal yet, the rooftop ceremony is the point at which we began considering one another husband and wife. People keep joking that if we can get through all of this, we can get through anything marriage/life has to throw at us. Getting through these strange times has indeed allowed us the opportunity to continue to learn the importance of supporting one another, and to see how lucky we are to have support from our friends and family.
Whenever things get tense or stressful and we feel a bit at odds, one of us will say “same team” to the other. It’s a reminder of the mentality we try to maintain – no matter what we’re facing, we’re going to work through it with each other, for each other, because our end goal is the same: to build a happy life together.
Michella Hand 