The Measure(88)

And Maura was actually quite pleased to have the ceremony at City Hall. The occasion didn’t feel quite as overbearing without the long walk down the aisle or kneeling in front of the altar. And Maura never saw herself as the type to have a conventional wedding anyway.

The civil ceremonies were performed inside the Marriage Bureau, a large gray edifice surrounded by an array of municipal buildings in the middle of downtown Manhattan. Immigration services, the IRS, and the district attorney were all housed within a one-block radius of the New York Marriage Bureau, but its closest neighbor was the Health Department, where the city’s birth and death certificates were filed. Maura found this oddly fitting. The Health Department recorded the beginnings and endings of life, while just next door, couples vowed to support each other through everything in between.

Inside, Maura thought the Marriage Bureau felt like a fancier DMV, with long couches lining one wall, a row of computers against the other, and large electronic screens mounted overhead, where couples looked to see their assigned number displayed, signaling that it was their turn to be wed in the private room in back. The 24-hour waiting period between obtaining a marriage license and performing the marriage ceremony may be waived with proof of an expiring string, read a poster near the entrance.

Maura could tell that Nina had been slightly distressed by the kitschy kiosk at the front, a small boutique hawking touristy “NYC” paraphernalia alongside last-minute wedding staples like flowers, veils, even rings. Perhaps, for a fleeting moment, Nina had even regretted her uncharacteristic impulsiveness that had brought them both here today.

But everywhere they turned, they saw love. Men in tuxedoes and women in gowns, young twenty-somethings in jeans and baseball caps, a handful of tulle-draped toddlers running amok. A few other couples had come alone, like Maura and Nina had, but most arrived with an entourage of guests, their cameras filling the hall with flashes.

Nina looked simple and elegant in cream-colored lace, while Maura had opted for a light gold dress with a bit more shimmer.

“I think you might be the most beautiful bride in here,” Nina said to her, touching her cheek.

After their number appeared on-screen, Maura and Nina took their places before the officiant, a balding man with a mustache and glasses, practically swallowed whole by his baggy brown suit, who approached each and every ceremony with the benevolent energy of a man who performed only one of them per day, instead of dozens. The couple in line behind them—a woman in a red floral dress with a crown of flowers in her hair and a man in a matching red tie—had graciously agreed to bear witness, standing side by side, their hands linked together by two intertwined pinkies.

Maura had never expected this moment. Of course, before the strings, she had sometimes suspected that a proposal might be coming—in an incident of particular weakness, she had even peeked among the pristinely folded clothes in Nina’s dresser—but everything had changed in March. Since then, even in their most intimate moments, even when swept up among the romance of Italy’s cobbled alleys and quiet fountains, Maura never thought Nina would propose. Not after the strings.

And Maura never would have been the one to ask, to put Nina in that position. She didn’t feel any shame at the thought of simply living with Nina, no titles. Maura didn’t need to be one half of a marriage to feel whole. But once Nina had posed the question, once the possibility was suddenly real and standing before her in the shape of the woman who felt like home, Maura thought that maybe it would be nice to be married, to have something that felt solid and lasting in her otherwise upended life. Maybe, despite everything her string had stolen, this was one thing she could still have.

After the officiant pronounced Maura Hill and Nina Wilson newlyweds, the couple returned to the main gallery and exited onto a peaceful street. Nina clasped Maura’s hand as they headed to meet their families and a few close friends at a restaurant just down the block—a near-miraculous feat that Nina had spent the weekend pulling together.

In a back room lit by candles, Nina’s and Maura’s parents sat together with Amie, while a few of Nina’s favorite coworkers, some of Maura’s friends from college, a couple of local relatives, and the members of Maura’s support group gathered around three other tables.

Even before the strings, Maura had always believed there was something just a little bit crazy about marriage, committing the rest of your life to someone before you had even lived that much of it yourself. And surely, some might find her marriage to Nina even harder to understand. Yet all of the people in this restaurant, these family and friends, had canceled their plans at the last moment, rearranged their lives to be here tonight. To show their support for this crazy act. To fill the room with love.



After the meal was served, Nina walked over to a corner where Maura had been chatting with a cousin. “There’s one more thing,” she said.

Maura smiled, eyeing her with faux-suspicion, and as the violins began to play over the speakers, Maura suddenly realized the four tables had been arranged with a small opening in the center. This was Nina’s plan all along.

Still surprised, Maura allowed herself to be pulled out of her chair and into Nina’s arms, while the voice of Nat King Cole filled the air around them.

“I can’t believe you did this,” Maura whispered against Nina’s cheek. “All of it.”

“If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”