Initially, David didn’t even want a wedding. He hates being the center of attention and anything that feels too contrived or treacly, so to compromise, we decided to throw a fun party. On two conditions: we wouldn’t do any traditional bride-and-groom stuff—save for an intimate, bare-bones ceremony right beforehand—and I would oversee the planning.
By the four-month-out mark, with the help of our incomparable planner Serena Merriman, my mom and I had secured a date and venue (December 7, The Boom Boom Room). I knew I wanted Hunter Abrams to shoot the wedding, and though I didn’t yet have a dress, I wasn’t worried. I was going vintage and had a slate of appointments lined up. Everything was running smoothly—until I began to notice a shift in David. Where once he was happily hands-off, now he was requesting to collaborate on my wedding Pinterest board. Where once there was stubble, now there were whiskers.
Truth is, I really should’ve seen it coming. David, you see, is a man who knows what he likes and likes the finer things. He is a self-taught sybarite with a taste for esoteric delicacies and gilded excess: Bombardinos in San Cassiano, fil d’ecosse socks, that sort of thing. So the chance to dream up a decadent wedding? I knew once I invited his input, the European beau monde in him wouldn’t be able to resist.
What I didn’t know is that I would awaken a magisterial menace that had apparently lain dormant inside him this whole time.
It was exactly three-and-a-half months before the wedding when he officially turned.
It started with the caterer. David asked to join our call with Peter Callahan and his team, who presented a parade of playful, bite-sized riffs on classic dishes, designed for passing and stations since we’d opted against a seated dinner. Few appealed to David. Before the call had even ended, he went to work.
For the next two weeks, David spent nearly every waking hour of his free time hunkered in front of his computer, plumbing the depths of high-end catering companies; researching sumptuous mid-century supper clubs; and immersing himself in the legendary delectations of French culinary virtuoso Auguste Escoffier.
Late at night, when his fingers started to go numb and his vision began to blur, he’d slink into bed and turn on old episodes of The French Chef, dozing off to the high-pitched, transatlantic lilt of Julia Childs making duck à l’orange.