Martha and Juan got married on the Pool Lawn, in the North West corner of Central Park. They got married on 31st October – Halloween. They are both originally from Los Angeles, California, but they were living in New York when they got married, and had been living in the city for four years at the time.
The couple met through Martha’s mom and Juan’s sister. “His girlfriend broke up with him two weeks before prom and so he did not have a date,” Martha explained. His sister asked her mom if she could do her brother a favor and go with him to prom, all expenses paid. “I happened to not have anything planned that weekend and I said yes,” Martha told me. And so, they went to prom as their first date and then went their separate ways. Two years later, Juan contacted Martha through Snapchat and that is when they began talking, followed by officially dating several months later.
Martha and Juan were both 29 when they got married, and had been together for six years before we had their legal court wedding and three years after that they had a more personal and celebratory wedding in Central Park with guests to celebrate. Martha told me that back when they conspired to arrange that prom date, Juan’s sister had said jokingly to Martha’s mom, “just watch, my brother is going to marry your daughter,” and it turns out that she was right!
Martha proposed to Juan at the same park where he had asked her to be his girlfriend some years earlier. She had been pushing him to go to the park really bad because she had wanted to ask him to marry her. But, unbeknownst to Martha, he had food poisoning that day. He still agreed to go to the park because she wanted to go, but when she found out that he was sick, she said they should go back home. “He was okay until we got home, where he remained in the bathroom for the remainder of the day. I joke that he got so surprised at my proposal that it made him throw up!” Martha tole me.
Martha and Juan had a legal courthouse wedding, but then they wanted to have a bigger celebration to include their family and friends. Initially, they considered having a wedding ceremony and celebration back home in California, due to a large portion of Martha’s family being undocumented and unable to fly, “but we found many venues to be both expensive and not our aesthetic,” Martha said. She loves New York’s colorful Fall season, “and Central Park is such an iconic spot,” she added. As you can see from the photos, Central Park did not let them down when it came to delivering beautiful Fall colors. She said that in the past, she hadn’t felt that a legal binding document was of much importance since they had already made it clear to each other that their relationship was forever. “However, the act of a ceremony in front of our families was important to me because it symbolized the families uniting,” Martha said. “It gave the opportunity for our families to be together in the same place, which was particularly important because our families are from all over California and Mexico. To have them all interact was incredibly special to us,” she explained.
Martha and Juan didn’t mind that getting married in a public park was breaking with wedding tradition. “I have never been a traditional person. I have always been the black sheep of my family, so a traditional wedding was never to be expected from me!” Martha said. “I love nature and it felt like the perfect location to showcase the beauty that is New York Fall season,” she added. I certainly agree. “Also, some of my family members had never visited New York before and had always dreamed of visiting Central Park. I gave them the opportunity to cross it off of their bucket list!” she told me. She said that she had worried about the weather in the run-up to the wedding, since the place where they planned to get married was completely out in the open. I had worried about it too, since the forecast was for rain in the days beforehand, but in the end, it stayed dry. We did have a wet weather backup plan to hold it at Bethesda Terrace in case of rain, but we didn’t really want to have to do that. Martha also worried about some family members who cannot walk too far, and she worried about them getting lost, but it all turned out fine.
Martha first contacted me after she had gotten my details from a friend whose wedding I had just planned. Before sending me an email she had done some research online and found Wed in Central Park to have excellent reviews (100% five star reviews to date!). Her friend’s wedding took place at Bethesda Terrace, and initially Martha and Juan thought they might want to get married in Cop Cot. We contracted to get started on their wedding planning, and then before I had applied for the event permit, Martha asked if we could switch to the Pool Lawn so we did. Cop Cot is lovely, and it has the iconic tall buildings right up close behind the trees, but the South end of Central Park, where Cop Cot it, is much busier than the North end, where the Pool is. Although the last time we held a wedding at the Pool Lawn Lin Manuel Miranda passed by while walking his dog, so it’s not that quiet! There were no such gate crashers at this wedding, so it passed peacefully.
Their guests were their immediate family, some close friends, and some coworkers. “They loved the idea of getting married in Central Park!” Martha told me. She is glad that they kept their guest list short in the end. “I have attended larger weddings and have heard from brides that they did not get to truly enjoy the experience. They did not get to talk to everyone, some even did not get to eat, and more guests meant more drama!” Martha told me. “I think smaller weddings might be becoming more popular because people are realizing that your wedding should be for you AND your guests, not just for your guests,” she added. Martha said that her only small regrets about getting married in New York was that some of the undocumented members of her family could not attend. They did have a Zoom call so that family members could watch, but of course it is not the same as actually having them there.
We arranged for Martha and Juan to have a “first look” photoshoot at the edge of Central Park. He waited on the street with the photographer, Martha arrived, approached him from behind, and then when he was allowed, he turned to look at his bride in all her finery for the first time. Then Juan went on to greet the guests and Martha hung back a little before making her entrance. For the ceremony, we had the officiant talk a little about how Martha and Juan met and their relationship to date, and then she read Love Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda, first in English and then in Spanish. Martha and Juan exchanged traditional vows, then took turns to repeat an extract from a film they love called The Nightmare Before Christmas. Before they exchanged rings, they repeated the vows from the movie The Corpse Bride. It was a really fun ceremony to work on, and so lovely that we could create something to uniquely suited to them.
Martha wore a black wedding dress, black veil, and a red and black tiara. She purchased her wedding dress from Best Total Wedding Plaza. She bought her veil and tiara from Etsy. Instead of a traditional floral bouquet, she carried succulents from the Succulent Source. She did her own hair and makeup. Juan wore a black suit and shirt with a skeleton hand boutonnière with red tie and matching pocket square. Their guests had been asked to wear black, red, and burgundy. Some of their favorite photos, taken by Clara Alave, include ones showing the lovely Fall foliage and the candid photos of the wind hitting them! “I loved that spot because it is an area where not many people go on a day-to-day basis and I loved the little pool with all the ducks,” Martha said.
After the wedding ceremony, Martha and Juan’s guests walked over to the dinner reception at Bistro Caza Azul. It’s over in East Harlem, close to East 118th Street. The couple stayed in the Park with the photographer for some portrait photos for a little while and then they went over to join them.
I asked what they would say to anyone else considering getting married in Central Park. “I highly recommend anyone considering getting married in Central Park to do it! It was beautiful, affordable, and a great location for photography,” Martha said. I asked how we did. “Claire made the wedding planning seamless! I work seven days a week as a PhD student and I would not have been able execute the wedding well without her help! She is an amazing wedding planner and I now recommend her anyone planning a New York wedding!” Martha said.
Thanks for sharing your story, Martha and Juan, and I wish you both the very best of luck for the future. If you would like me to help you with your own Central Park wedding, whether want to celebrate in New York with family as this couple did, or eloping alone, visit our website. Keep updated with our news and see lots of beautiful photos, follow us on Instagram, follow us on Facebook, follow us on TikTok, and follow us on Pinterest.
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