Times Weddings Highlights: Wedding Planning Is As Easy as a Concert in the Park

One couple who got married this weekend had a leg up on many other brides and grooms: They know event planning. As Lauren Berger and Stuart Ruderfer's NY Times wedding announcement explains, Berger works for NYC Big Events, a city agency that works on landing and promoting high-profile events, while Ruderfer is the founder and CEO of Civic Entertainment Group, which creates marketing opportunities and events. And they met when Berger worked at Civic Entertainment, where they got to know each other.

As their feelings deepened, she said, “I realized it was probably better in terms of the company and the other employees that I look for another job.” She left in 2003.

They got engaged in 2005, and when it came to planning their event — a wedding for 250 — their professional experience proved helpful.

“The only difference between planning a giant concert in Central Park and a wedding is that there are a few more details in the concert,” Mr. Ruderfer said.

• There are 31 wedding announcements.
• Of the 31, there are 16 photographs, plus other accompanying the Vows column. And of the 16 photographs, 14 are of couples and 2 are of brides only.
• The youngest bridge is 24, the oldest 56
• The youngest groom is 25, the oldest is 66.
• The biggest age difference is 34 years; the bride, Natalie Lui, who had moved to Washington DC from San Francisco, said about the age difference, "I was very much troubled, and my family was very much troubled. But I realized that our love transcends age in so many ways, that we connect on so many different levels. The men I met in California who were in their 30s and superambitious never really valued women, but Stephen valued me as a person.”
• One set of newlyweds both work for Forest City Ratner Companies; another couple works at the city's Law Department's Office of the Corporation Counsel.
• One bride's mother has written a book about corporate blogging.
• The Vows column include mention of the groom's first glimpse of his future bride at a costume party, when she was dressed as Martha Stewart-in-prison-garb.
• One bride's father was attorney general under President George H.W. Bush.

  Photograph of a Central Park Summerstage event by whatisee on Flickr