Al Fresco Nuptials in Grace Court Alley

By on June 12, 2009 11:20 pm in Events, Fun

jsw_img_6621Early this evening, the entrance to Grace Court Alley was blocked by this chalkboard, with balloons attached, proclaiming “Sarah and Peter Get Married: This Way”, with an arrow pointing into the Alley.

Looking eastward, I saw what may have been the climactic moment of the wedding ceremony (see the photo below).

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Brooklyn Heights Blog wishes Sarah and Peter much happiness.

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  • Publius

    Mazel Tov! Happiness, health and prosperity to the newlyweds.

  • alex

    I walked past too. It seemed like a lovely ceremony. Congrats!

  • CJP

    Not for me to reflect on nuptials because I wouldn’t change a thing about the way my wife and I did ours (including the first dance song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”) but just strikes me as an odd way and place to have a wedding.

    Again, we’re all different and that’s probably why I’m not marrying this bride. But surely there’s a better location to get married, no?

  • x

    Cheap and effective. In this economy, they probably saved 20,000 bucks!

  • http://www.FlashlightWorthyBooks.com Peter

    Peter and Sarah here — thanks for the shout-out!

    Not only are were we thrilled to get married in our neighborhood, but we can safely say it was the best wedding ever. ;-)

    (And thank you to all our patient neighbors who put up with boisterous chatter all night!)

  • nabeguy

    By coincidence, my neighbor held a wedding in his patio garden for friends this part Friday, huppah and all. Talk about the new economy! P & S, my best wishes for a long and happy life together. One tip, however… keep your kids out of alleyways.:}

  • Tony

    Yes, what a lovely, heartwarming story. Unless you happen to live on Remsen Street, as I do, and were subjected to five hours of loud music, cheesy microphoned toasts and other annoying loud patter until midnight, at which point we all had to endure trucks and workers dismantling the ceremony’s infrastructure. I suppose the people behind the wedding didn’t care if their neighbors were bothered or inconvenienced by this. Alleys are echo chambers, and even the slightest noise is amplified, quite apart from the actual amplification itself, so hundreds of people had a wedding blasting into their home, whether they liked it or not. This was a selfish and unneighborly act. Good luck to Sarah and Peter.

  • yo

    wah….

  • Tony

    I just called Community Board 2 and I was told a permit was not issued for this event. Peter, since you read this blog, can you tell us how you managed to close off a public street for a private event if not through the Community Board?

  • The Where

    Tony, you disgust me. Disgust ME. That takes some doing.

  • Anne

    Here’s an unneighborly act – complaining about a once-in-a-lifetime event (hopefully!) staged by your neighbors to celebrate their love for each other and likely also express their love for your shared neighborhood (as I can’t imagine they’d choose to wed in the nabe if they didn’t love it there), then accusing them of being selfish and uncaring without knowing a thing about them.

    Also being unneighborly is not politely alerting your neighbors/the people running the sound board at the wedding that the sound is echoing and that they might want to turn it down out of concern for the entire neighborhood – thereby giving the couple the chance to behave as the kind neighbors they just might be and turn down the volume.

    Complaining about it online after the fact and detracting from Peter’s post-wedding high was surely not the right way to go here. Say something when it happens or don’t say it at all.

    (fwiw, I don’t know anyone involved with this wedding or living within earshot of it…)

  • Tony

    Yes, Anne, I’m sure I’ve just ruined their “post-wedding high.” I’m sure they much would have preferred that a stranger storm into their wedding and demand that the deejay talk in a whisper rather than a harmless kvetch on a blog. As for their love of the neighborhood, my guess is that this decision was mostly guided by economics, as other people here have surmised. And if you *did* live within earshot of this event, you might not be so quick to take their side.

  • Tony

    Really, Where? Gee, I must have done something really awful to disgust YOU.

  • http://brooklyneagle.com Eddie The Eagle

    Tony, you old bag, give it a rest, it wasn’t as loud as you claim. A wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event, or in my case, thrice. Leave it alone.

  • alex

    @Anne – ditto.

  • nabeguy

    The typical window opens both ways…to let in AND out noise. Too bad about your loss of sleep, but the timing and venue for your complaint is off. As I posted, I also had a wedding staged in my neighbors garden and, while apparently not as boisterous as this one was, the noise emanating from it went well on into the night. As a neighbor, I simply chose to let them have their moment of bliss and put a sock in it…my ear, that is.

  • Tony

    You’re not getting it, nabeguy. This wasn’t a wedding in someone’s backyard. Backyards are private property, and people can do whatever they want on them (within the law). If what the Community Board said is true and no permit was issued for the wedding, it’s pretty bold that the two would close down a public street that happens to be a noisy alley facing the bedrooms of hundreds of Remsen Street residents (not to mention the other residents of GCA). I should not be asked to put up with this because it’s a wedding.

    As for Eddie’s classy barb, you don’t know my age or gender, so why hurl a slur generally aimed at elderly women (I’m neither, thank you)? For an Eagle, you’re rather dim.

    Tony’s had his final say; you can all get back to sucking up now.

  • The Where

    Tony the fact that you refer to yourself in the third person tells me that you are hot mess of vinegar and water.

  • nabeguy

    Permits, schmermits. It’s exactly the kind of spontaneous joie de vivre spirit behind this wedding that the neighborhood so sorely lacks. I appreciate my peace-and-quiet too, but won’t begrudge a little fun on my neighbor’s part, even if it means some inconvenience to me. A little give-and-take is what holds a community together, and not folks who have 311 on speed dial.

  • bornhere

    Yowza, Tony. I didn’t hear it, but I think an event that ends by midnight on a Friday, especially when it’s something so rare, should be accepted as part of a happy “neighborhood mix.” And did they really “close down” Grace Court Alley? I never thought of it as a major thoroughfare, and unless people were prevented from taking their cars out or bringing them in to any of the spaces there (or if emergency vehicles would not have been able to enter the Alley), I don’t see the great inconvenience. A little blackboard with balloons doesn’t seem to be an immovable impediment. But I guess this is yet another, somewhat discouraging answer to, “Can’t we all just get along.”

  • north heights res

    This will certainly earn me curmudgeon status, but I’m with Tony: party noise until midnight would irritate the hell out of me.

    Yes, part of city living is dealing with the noise from one’s neighborhood, and neighbors…but so is being considerate and aware that one’s noise can affect literally hundreds of people. It goes both ways.

  • heightsdiho

    Peter and Sarah – whoever you may be – wishing you all joy and a long and happy life together. Ignore the permit harpies. They’re just jealous!

  • GHB

    Jane, I know many long-winded (and married) gasbags!

  • http://newyorkadventures.blogspot.com Erin

    Congrats Peter and Sarah! I hope you enjoyed your Brooklyn Heights wedding and now your life in Brooklyn Heights together. All the best!
    -Erin

  • Violette

    Congrats Peter and Sarah! You pulled off a hell of a party or so we heard. We live next door but were out for the night, our sitter said that our walls were bouncing from all of the music (they did say you had quiet a selection :). Reading this blog spot reminded me of our wedding and all of the friendly and not-so-friendly comments that were made about it. However, we are glad to have such a jolly couple in the neighborhood. Welcome and may you live many happy years together! Cheers!