Couple Has Baffling On-Purpose Wedding in NYC Subway
What is your second-biggest subway-related fear, assuming your number one fear is being pushed in front of an oncoming train? Take a minute. Is it suddenly finding yourself in a wedding gown, getting married on the N train in front of grumpy strangers on their ways to and from work, like a horrible nightmare from which you cannot awake?
For one beautiful young couple, this was the reality they chose.
26-year-old Hector Irakliotis and 25-year-old Tatyana Sandler, a game designer and film editor, respectively, got married on the N train Friday as it crossed from Brooklyn into Manhattan. According to the New York Daily News, the groomsmen began decorating the train around 3:30p.m., when the groom made an announcement to the other passengers:
"Everyone, hi. I have an announcement to make," the groom said to the other riders. "I am going to be getting married in 20 minutes." He invited everyone to stay, but asked if they would move to the back of the car, which they willingly did.
The bride and bridesmaids boarded the train several stops later. The Daily News spoke to N train passenger Debra Solomon about the subwedding:
"This is something new, something very different," she said laughing. "I think it's very cute! It's romantic. This is definitely a first. And look how cooperative everyone is! That says a lot."
The bride—who, as you can see in the Daily News' photographs, looked quite beautiful—walked down the subway car to an iPhone playing "City Love" by John Mayer. As for why the couple chose the smelly, hot underground tube full of strangers at the height of cold and flu season for the location of their wedding, Irakliotis had this to say:
"We've been through a lot. Good times, bad times, and a lot of the good times have taken place on the train," Irakliotis said. "Confessions of love, reconciliations, goofy, ridiculous conversations — the whole spectrum. In New York, you spend so much time on the train, we thought why not?"
I can think of about 45,000 reasons why not just off the top of my head, but sure.
To be fair, this part is genuinely pretty sweet:
"I'm originally from Ukraine, and each time we'd come back here, I'd say to Hector, 'It doesn't feel like home until I see the skyline as we're crossing the bridge.' And he remembered that. He planned it out specifically so that we'd see the skyline as we were married," she explained.
Congratulations to the happy couple.
Please no one ever do this again.