Jessica

I am a notoriously intense dancer, and was 100% involved in the mix of 70s classic disco tunes with which the DJ was finishing out his set. As Donna Summer’s classic “Last Dance” began to play, a young-seeming bow tie-clad man asked me to dance.

I couldn’t understand why all of the guys around the dance floor were giving me enthusiastic thumbs up; I thought I was clearly dancing with one of the dozens of gay men who were tearing up the dance floor that night.

When the song ended, Ben asked me where the “after party” was. “Well, we’re going back to the hotel,” I said. Ben said that he’d see me there. “I’m not gay, by the way,” he asserted. “I’m Andrew’s cousin.” “Oh,” I thought to myself. “Then what’s with the bow tie?”

We met up with several people in the lobby of the Fairmount Hotel for after-wedding drinks. Ben and I spoke a bit about post-stroke emergency medical care, but I was just too tired to stay up any longer. Ben very kindly offered me the opportunity to see what the rooms on his floor of the hotel looked like, but I demurred.

Although the “after party” didn’t work out exactly how Ben had pictured it, we did end up exchanging contact information that night, and a couple of weeks later, met up in New York to see a Broadway show. As the date ended, Ben asked whether I’d like to come visit him in Philadelphia the next week. “For Thanksgiving!? This is brutally insane,” I thought. And then I said, “Sure!”

Then he headed back to Philadelphia and I went on about my day.

“Such a bold young man,” I said to myself. “I think I’ll marry him.”

Ben

As Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson so eloquently prove in the hit motion picture “Wedding Crashers”– weddings are a great place for singles to meet. Little did I know that, as someone who feels comfortable on a dance-floor after a few drinks, I might blend in with a crowd of well-dressed gay men.

Jessica was easy to spot throughout the night. Though at that time, I did not know her name. She was the woman in the pink dress. As she danced, the DJ’s lights shimmered in the fabric. It wasn’t until the evening was beginning to wane that I’d consumed enough liquid courage (read: Macallan 10) to approach the woman in the pink dress. Just then, the song ended and a slow piano progression trickled into the room. I knew there wasn’t much time left, and my opportunity was now or never. I looked to my right, and there she was, standing a few inches from me. I asked her who she was dancing with, to which she replied, “you?” Much to my delight we began to slow dance, but I failed to recognize the song playing was Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” and that this particular song only has about 10 seconds of slow dance before the beat picks up.

Dancing to a faster song, we didn’t have much opportunity to talk. After the song ended and people began to leave, I made sure to get the name of the woman in the pink dress, and I found out she was heading to the hotel bar for drinks! Having just traveled from an emergency medical services conference in the Poconos, I tried impressing Jessica with my knowledge of acute stroke care and pre-hospital interventions in STEMI patients. She was not impressed, and went to her room.

At this point, all I knew about Jessica was her first name and that she was friends with my cousin Andrew. It turns out that was enough to ~~stalk~~ find her on Facebook. I wasn’t sure it was her, but I sent a message informing her it was daylight savings that night, and she had an extra hour to sleep so she needn’t turn in so early. It WAS her, because she replied and immediately knew who I was. But to my dismay, this did not persuade her out of her room. So I went to sleep, dreaming of Jessica, the woman in the pink dress.

The next morning at the wedding brunch, Jessica waved at me and I later found a message on my phone offering a drink next time I found myself in NYC. A couple weeks later, that drink turned into dinner and a Broadway show, and the rest is history.