FASH-Weddings & Celebrations-It Helps to Lift the Bride Off Her Feet

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March 1, 2013


It Helps to Lift the Bride Off Her Feet



By KATHERINE ALBERS


After a decade-long courtship, Nicholas Keefe was as ready as one could be to wed Claire Lieberman, his high school sweetheart. Yet as their wedding day approached, there was one detail about it that sparked nervousness in Mr. Keefe, a former high school football, basketball and baseball player: the first dance.

Sure Mr. Keefe, now 28 and a foreign-exchange specialist with Gain Capital, a financial firm in New York, was quick enough on his feet. His fiancée, however, is someone whose commitment to dance as an art form was a serious one, having started out to become a ballerina at age 4, and who had once been with the junior company of Ballet Chicago and also appeared with the Joffrey Ballet in some Chicago performances of “The Nutcracker.”

To some extent, his nerves had been put in check by the brief set of lessons he and Ms. Lieberman had taken, and the dance steps they had practiced ahead of their Feb. 23 ceremony in Naples, Fla. But on their wedding day, as the band began its version of “The Best Is Yet to Come,” the couple’s choreography quickly unraveled as they realized there wasn’t enough room for all of the moves they wanted to do.

“About three steps in, neither one of us had any idea of what was going on, so we just fumbled around,” recalled Ms. Lieberman, also now 28 and an associate vice president in New York with AllianceBernstein, the investment management concern. As they moved around the floor, Mr. Keefe began to improvise, shifting his gaze from her eyes to his own feet for his big finish, in which he spun his new bride around (something she was not expecting) and lifted her off her feet.

With that, the crowd went wild.

“I tried to go along with it, but I guess everyone knew I was surprised,” said Ms. Lieberman, who had been on track to become a professional dancer until the demands of her training program with Ballet Chicago, she said, required her to trim her class schedule at New Trier High School in her hometown, Winnetka, Ill. Instead, she decided to jettison all of it in favor of spending her last two high school years at Milton Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school that happened to have a good dance program.

“I had always known at some level that ballet was not the right career for me,” she said. “I loved food too much and didn’t want to be limited from trying out every sort of activity and adventure.”

On her first day at Milton, she caught the eye of Mr. Keefe, a longtime day student who lived with his family in Boston. “I was intrigued by her,” he said. She couldn’t say the same. Boarding students like herself did not hang out with the day students.

Although their paths crisscrossed several times it wasn’t until 2003, midway through their senior year, that they finally spoke. Ms. Lieberman said this occurred only because of “a crazy, random turn of events on my birthday” — something she had planned to observe with a trip to Miami. But a roommate had accidentally deleted a paper from her computer, prompting a request from the school’s dean that she stay behind and work on it.

Her friends gave her a party anyway, where Mr. Keefe put in an appearance. “We talked all night,” she said. “And, after midnight, we started kissing.”

Things accelerated quickly after a Valentine’s Day movie date in 2003, to the point that they decided to live together in Boston after graduation from Milton. It was a memorable summer. “We would go to get ice cream, drive around listening to Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, and just talk,” Ms. Lieberman said. “Falling in love was an unspoken thing.” When Mr. Keefe was headed to Bates College in Maine and Ms. Lieberman to Middlebury in Vermont, they made a pact to remain a couple.

Even so, Ms. Lieberman was adamant they would have their own lives and not necessarily see each other every weekend. “I didn’t want us not to experience college,” she said. “Otherwise, I knew, deep down, we would be bitter and angry with one another.”

At that point, Ms. Lieberman said, she was not yet convinced that their relationship could last. “I thought I would lead a rather independent and transformational life, eventually finding someone when I was older and had a better sense of the adult person I would become,” she said. Ms. Lieberman spoke about the burden faced by those who meet the right person early in their lives. “Some couples that marry their high school sweethearts never fully mature,” she said, behavior that she likened to how some people show regressive tendencies when in the presence of their parents. “Some couples who remain with their childhood companion miss the chance to fully develop, and then later end up bitter for missed opportunities.”

Offered a chance to study in Australia, she grabbed it. Despite her reassurances, Mr. Keefe said he worried she might move on with someone else. At the end of their freshman year, the couple came the closest they had ever come to breaking up. But as the start of their sophomore year approached, she was seized by the idea that “somehow, deep down, we knew that we had to be together,” she said. “We knew this was forever, even if neither of us admitted it at the time.”

She added: “We seemed to be growing more and more in line. Nick’s interest in travel, music and world views grew — all important to me — while my sense of restlessness slowly became more grounded.”

For Mr. Keefe’s part, it took a blizzard while visiting Ms. Lieberman in Middlebury to settle the inevitability of union. “On an empty mountain road, the car skidded on a patch of ice and veered into a snow bank,” he recalled. “It was late on a Friday night, and the roads were empty. Neither of us could get cellphone reception in the mountains. Rather than let fear or panic take over the situation, Claire and I kept each other calm and relaxed.” (After two hours, a truck came along and pulled them out.)

“In times of uncertainty we always know the other person will be there for each other,” he said.

College graduation brought them to New York City and new challenges. Could two people share a tiny 16th-floor studio apartment, working wholly different hours, and find a balance between too much togetherness and not enough?

Whereas Mr. Keefe became an early-to-rise and in-bed sort, her work sometimes ended before dawn. Through ballet, “I certainly developed an intense amount of discipline,” Ms. Lieberman said, shaping her “into the successful multitasker and hard worker.”

They managed the best they could, then came Hurricane Sandy, which robbed their apartment of power, heat and running water for five days, and brought a welcome break. “Both of our offices were closed, so we would sleep late, wake up and eat peanut butter sandwiches,” Mr. Keefe said, adding that what might have been a bad situation, “was really fun.”

After the storm, the couple returned to their impossible schedules. “Nick’s 9 p.m. bedtimes,” Ms. Lieberman said, “versus my 5 a.m. nights and distaste for the morning will always be at odds.” Which is why they relish weekends. “My favorite times with Nick are our late night dancing sessions, when we come from the bar and he cranks up the iPod and pulls me to my feet,” Ms. Lieberman said.

Mr. Keefe proposed in December 2011 on the beach in Miami with a ring from Tiffany that proved to be a little too large for Ms. Lieberman’s finger. “We came off the beach and saw these guys walking toward us and I held up my hand to say, ‘I’m engaged!’ and the ring went flying off,” she said, laughing. “I’ve never seen Nick look so worried. Luckily, we found it.”

Their marriage on Feb. 23 was attended by 165 guests who had gathered on the beach at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla. As the Rev. Evelyn Plum, a Unitarian Universalist minister, led the couple in their vows, dozens of beachgoers passed by, some snapping photos of the couple.

Ms. Lieberman’s brother, who performs under the name Todd Carey, sang a song he wrote,“Float Away,” which includes the lines: “Let’s dance in the dark, while the radio plays and let’s float away.”

During the reception, John Keefe, one of the groom’s three brothers, recalled how he had once sought Nicholas’s advice, asking, “ ‘How do you know Claire is the one?’ He gave me two reasons: ‘One, she never hesitates when it comes to believing in me. Two, she always has my back.’ ”



ON THIS DAY

Background

It had become evident in high school that they were meant to be a couple, but then they had to grow into the roles.

When

Feb. 23, 2013

Where

Vanderbilt Beach at the Ritz-Carlton, Naples, Fla.

Details

The bride, who hates flowers, carried a giant palm leaf down the aisle. In place of boutonnieres, the groom, groomsmen and the father of the bride all wore greenery on their lapels.




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March 1, 2013


That Most Important Dress, or at Least a Look-Alike


By STACEY SOLIE


When she discovered that her wedding gowns were being knocked off in China and sold online, Elizabeth Dye felt both frustrated and flattered.

A Web site was offering to make her $1,300 For Emily gown, with its fitted lace and silk bodice and knee-length tulle skirt, for $188, according to Ms. Dye, who owns a design and apparel business in Portland, Ore.

But Ms. Dye, who had received a tip from another designer, also discovered that whoever was copying her gowns had also snatched photographs from her blog, adding a watermark before posting them to the Etsy Web site. Rather than draw on her year of law school at Stanford to draft a threatening letter, as she had done in the past, Ms. Dye decided this time to order a dress from the offending site, and see firsthand what brides who fell for the imitations were getting.

“When you’re half a world away and pulling stuff off the Web, you cannot police that,” Ms. Dye said. “It felt, for me, like the first time that I could be in control of the situation.”

Rampant counterfeiting and copying has long plagued the fashion industry, but increased as sales moved online. While independent designers often lack the resources necessary to effectively go after copycats, larger companies, like Burberry and Hermès, have won million-dollar trademark lawsuits against Web operations in China.

Legislation has been proposed several times by Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, that would allow designers to register and copyright designs for up to three years. Critics argue that enforcement would be difficult and that protections could end up hindering innovation, while proponents say that fashion designers deserve the same protections as songwriters for their creativity.

Last year alone, as many as 600,000 knockoff wedding gowns were purchased online from overseas, said Craig S. Hilliard, a lawyer who represents the American Bridal & Prom Industry Association in a federal lawsuit against overseas counterfeiters. That, he added, represents hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Stephen Lang, the executive of Mon Cheri Bridal, a gown and formal wear manufacturer in Trenton, presides over the industry association and is leading the charge in the lawsuit, which accuses several Chinese Web sites of counterfeiting and violating trademarks by, say, setting up an electronic entity with a very similar name to an established business. Mr. Lang said he first noticed the knockoff wedding dress Web sites about three years ago.

“We want to convince the counterfeit apparel industry that we are going to do whatever it takes to stop the flow of money,” said Mr. Hilliard, a partner in the Lawrenceville, N.J., office of the law firm Stark & Stark. In January, a judge in Federal District Court in Trenton awarded the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction against several specific Web sites, and Mr. Hilliard said some $60,000 in third-party accounts had been frozen. The plaintiffs plan to expand the suit to about 100 other Web sites in the coming weeks, he added. As the legal assault unfolds, however, brides could wind up in the middle of the fray, their money frozen in an account and their dressmaker closing up shop.

It was a former Portland designer, Leanne Marshall, who notified Ms. Dye that someone was selling copies of her work on Etsy. This was after a customer told Ms. Marshall, 32, that her wedding dresses were being marketed there, too.

“Not only were they selling my dress but they were using my pictures,” said Ms. Marshall, a “Project Runway” winner in 2008 who now works in Brooklyn. “On top of that, it was a picture of me.” (Smaller designers often act as their own models; Ms. Dye has done so in the past.) “That’s like adding two insults on top of injury.”

Ms. Marshall added that she told Etsy that the sellers were blatantly using her photos and those of dozens of other designers, but the Web sites have been able to continue operating.

In an e-mail, Sara Cohen, an Etsy spokeswoman, quoted from a previous statement by the company’s counsel, Sarah Feingold, that: “Etsy is a venue, not a judge or jury. We are open to all creative makers, curators and artisans, and we don’t prescreen items or shops.” Ms. Cohen added, however, that photographs were protected and that Ms. Marshall “was welcome to contact our legal department.” She declined to provide statistics about copyright violations “due to company privacy.”

If the Internet has the effect of putting distance between the customer and the seller, it can also provide opportunities for surprisingly direct communication, as Ms. Dye, 40, found out when she ordered the cheap version of one of her gowns from the seller, Lemandyweddingdress. She quickly received a response from someone called Rose, who had recognized her name.

“We got the picture of this dress from another wedding Web site,” Rose said in an e-mail to Ms. Dye. Still, Rose then offered to take down the photo. “Sorry about that,” she added. Before agreeing to make the dress, Rose wanted to know why Ms. Dye wanted it.

When Ms. Dye wrote back that she wanted it for a client who could not afford the dress from her Portland shop, Rose thanked her. Eight days later, the garment arrived in a small DHL package. Upon examining its construction, Ms. Dye was impressed.

“It’s sewn pretty well,” she said. The dressmakers had even added interior corsetry to secure the fit. But she also noticed that instead of the relatively expensive and high quality silk, French Chantilly lace and English tulle that she uses, this dress was made of stiff, bright white synthetic fabric that, she said, reeked of chemicals.

The petals on a flower at the waistband were melted on the edges, not sewn, and the skirt pouffed, making it look like apparel for a child. This was her design, but this was not her dress.

“There’s no soul, there’s no heart in it,” she said. “It has all the weird faults of translation. You get the literal words, but not the poetry.”

Attempts to reach Rose or anyone else at Lemandyweddingdress were not successful.

Ms. Dye said that seeing the dress took away a lot of her anxiety about piracy: “Anybody who could order this dress for $188 and be happy with it, is not going to order a dress from me anyway.”








Source: www.nytimes.com