A Wedding Without Typos

It was wonderful to hear from so many friends and family members these past few days, as Nancy and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary.

Thank you to all. It meant a lot to us.

Nancy taking a photo of me taking a photo of her.

We celebrated in typical style, going to a baseball game. It was a doubleheader due to a rainout, so we saw two of the Mets' three victories on lucky Sept. 13 (with the previous night's game having ended past midnight). Nancy took a photo of me taking a photo of her while we ate a Citi Field restaurant.

I've posted before about our wedding: this lovely column by our former boss, Anne Buckley, who was editor of Catholic New York, the newspaper where Nancy and I worked before our marriage.

I had thought this the only thing in writing about that day.

But then a little while ago I found this: a column Nancy wrote for Catholic New York five months after our wedding.

Part of a bridal advertising section, it details our wedding planning. I had fun reading the column because, honestly, I remember none of this. I only remember asking Nancy to tell me when and where to show up and what to wear.

I found the clip by accident, rifling through old files to find the meaning of the name "Varettoni" for my cousin's school genealogy project. That's still a mystery. I'm beginning to think Varettoni is a made-up name, like Verizon.

Speaking of which, I joined that company a year before our wedding — thinking I'd try the gig for a year or two because otherwise it would be awkward to work so closely beside my fiance during our engagement. More than 33 years later, I'm still at the company, where last week our PR team posted a record number of social media posts, and features and stories on Verizon's Newscenter.

Everything was urgent. Given the flurry of activity related to a technology trade show, hurricane preparations, an investor conference and other corporate announcements, the team did a great job in catching several typos that almost fell through the cracks.

There seemed to be typos everywhere last week. Watching TV to relax after work, I even spotted one among the broadcast listings.

So, Circle of Life, I had to laugh when I read the last few lines of Nancy's story, which I've reprinted below.

Let me know if you find any typos in all this. I'd like to make it perfect. Just like my wedding day.

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Published in Catholic New York, Feb. 5, 1987, by Nancy C. Varettoni:

Some people may remember 1986 as this year when big weddings came back to style. After all, we had Maria and Arnold, Caroline and Ed, and Fergie and Prince Andrew. But my favorite wedding was a rather simple affair that occurred on Sept. 13. That’s when I married Bob Varettoni.

Though didn't have to contend with the pressures of a princess-to-be or the heirs of an American dynasty, planning our wedding presented its own challenges — namely, how much would this cost and how would we find the time to do it.

Since Bob and I had been self-supporting for several years, we agreed to pay for the wedding expenses ourselves. That meant figuring out a budget and sticking to it, or we'd wiped out our savings. We both have jobs that demand a lot of our time end, when we were engaged, we lived about a half hour away from each other. Scheduling wedding-related appointments on week nights would be next to impossible.

With these considerations, we decided that a small wedding – just family and a few close friends – would be best. Besides, neither of us would be comfortable at an elaborate affair.

Those bridal magazines and a book on wedding etiquette are very helpful. They contain guidelines on what to do when, which help you put your priorities in order. Invariably, these publications suggest that you talk to a clergyman before making any other plans.

Our favorite wedding day photo.

My pastor proved to be one of the best sources for wedding information, not only in terms of Church requirements, but the strategies of finding reception hall, florist, photographer, etc. (Consider how many weddings a priest attends each year!)

At our first meeting he asked a series of questions to make sure that Bob and I understood the seriousness of the marriage commitment. Then he explained what documents and other information were needed – baptismal certificates, dates of confirmation, marriage license – as well as the marriage preparation programs that were available to us. He asked about our jobs and where we plan to live, and was delighted to learn that Bob's uncle, Msgr. Julian Varettoni, whom we are asked to officiate at the ceremony, was a classmate of his whom he hadn't seen in a number of years.

He understood the difficulty of finding a reception hall that was available same day as the church. He explained that weddings could only be scheduled at certain times on the weekends and that most of the late time slots were booked to the end of the year because people prefer to get married later in the day. We would have greater flexibility, he said, if we chose an earlier time, and he told us some dates and times when the church would be available.

Up to this point, Bob and I had only talked in general terms about the date of the wedding and type of reception. We decided we would accomplish more if we divided responsibilities. We would do the leg work independently and consult each other before coming to the final decision.

He had no idea where to start with a reception, so he graciously deferred to my judgment in that department. I was just as happy to let him make arrangements for the honeymoon. We would plan the Mass together with his uncle's help. 

We determined how much money we could spend on the entire wedding – reception, flowers, photographer, honeymoon, etc. Next, we decided how much of that amount should go toward the honeymoon and how much for the wedding/reception expenses.

Some people warned us that arguments would begin once the wedding plans were under way, but Bill Griffin, the CNY circulation manager, offered the best advice. He said that the engagement would be like being married since it's the time when couples really start making decisions together. The way they react then will probably be similar to the way they behave once they're married.


Bob and I waited for the big blowup, but none occurred. Perhaps it's because we have similar tastes, or perhaps it's because we discovered early in our relationship that we have different ideas on how to spend money, as, I’m told, many couples do. Rather than argue over every cent, we promised to stick within our individual budgets and to trust the other's judgment. 

This was particularly true when I selected the spot for the reception. Traditional banquet halls seemed very expensive, and I have never been a fan of big, sit-down dinners. At first I thought I could rent a local women's club and have a caterer bring in the food, but most clubs were booked solid to the end of the year. One was available, but it would require a lot of work to get the place into the shape I envisioned. I tentatively reserved the club in case nothing else worked out, but I kept looking. On a whim, I called a hotel-restaurant that I had like since I had dinner there several years ago. It reminded me of an old English Tudor manor house, a perfect setting for reception, I thought.

As luck would have it, they did hold wedding receptions, and there was a date available in September. The specialty was a "stand-up" or cocktail reception. Lots of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres served butler style. Guests could make themselves comfortable in the main sitting room or on the front porch. To the side was the sun room, where the wedding cake and coffee would be served. I could make arrangements for a string ensemble or a piano player through the banquet manager.

It seemed perfect and within my budget, although more expensive than the women's club. And we might have been able to find a banquet hall that would provide a dinner for what this cost. I talked with Bob, and he agreed that since this would be more convenient in the long run, and it seem best suited to our tastes, the money would be well spent.

I called my pastor and booked the church for 11:30 on Saturday morning. The reception would begin at 1 p.m. 

Everything fell into place after this.

Our families offered to help with some expenses. His parents gave us spending money for the honeymoon, my mother paid for the limousine rental, and Bob's sister got a discount on the wedding invitations for a printer she worked with and paid for them as a wedding present.

We cut costs in other ways, too. An associate pastor gave my telephone number to the woman who was getting married immediately after me. We decided to split the cost for the flowers for the church, by doing so were able to afford a few more flowers than we could have if we paid for them alone. The only concession was that we had to stick with white flowers and aisle decorations since our bridal parties were wearing different colors.

I nearly had a heart attack when I discovered how much wedding dresses cost. I had seen one in a magazine that I particularly liked – a tea length gown with a handkerchief hem – but it was out of my price range. By chance, I was walking through a mall around Valentine's Day and noticed a dress shop featuring white, lacy dresses. On the rack – and just my size – was an ivory tea length dress with a handkerchief hemline for about one-fifth of the price of the dress in the magazine. It was essentially the same look: only the neckline and the lace for the bodice and sleeves were different.

I couldn't find a headpiece that I liked, so my mother suggested that I find out whether a hat shop would make one, and one did. I'm not sure whether I saved any money here, but I got lots of compliments on how pretty and unique the veil was.

After our engagement, our weekends became increasingly hectic. That's why we decided to attend an Engaged Encounter weekend. We could have attended sessions that meet once a week for three weeks or attend a daylong session, but we really wanted to get away from planning for the wedding and talk about our marriage.

Essentially, the weekend is a series of communication exercises that helps the couple to exchange their ideas about all aspects of marriage – children, sex, religion, etc. Two married couples and a priest give presentations, and then the engaged couples are asked to give written responses to a series of questions. After an allotted time, the couple exchanges notebooks, and each reads the other's answers and talks about them.

The writing part came pretty easily for Bob and me. What was most satisfying was that our answers – particularly on why we wanted to get married – were remarkably similar, though there were a few surprises.

Our pastor gave us a booklet on the nuptial Mass which contains suggested readings and forms of the vows. We spent a Saturday evening in Bob's uncle's rectory going over the passages and selecting those that were most appropriate.

The music that we chose was a combination of modern and traditional hymns that were favorites of ours, as well as our parents.

To tie it all together, we printed a program listing the order of the Mass, the readings and hymns, and the responses.

Perhaps it wasn't the most traditional of weddings in its planning or execution, but plenty of people have told me that they enjoyed themselves tremendously. Nonetheless, I looked for further proof that Bob and I had pulled off a wedding with no gaffes – major or minor. I discovered it a few months later when I was talking to a wedding guest at another party. In the church, she sat next to CNY's editor, Anne Buckley. Miss Buckley – the woman who once found a misspelled word in an inscription in stone on a monument in West Point – read the program from cover to cover.

"No typos," she pronounced.

No typos. I guess we did OK.