Ted Ackerman & Geremy Kawaller
Bowery Hotel
January 29, 2011
After trading e-mails on Match.com in 2005, lawyer Ted Ackerman, 31, and financial-services director Geremy Kawaller, 36, had their first date at the Red Cat in Chelsea. “I’d say it went well,” says Ted. “Our second date was a trip to Puerto Rico.” Though their relationship moved fast, the pair waited five years before getting engaged. Geremy originally planned to pop the question at the Red Cat, but Ted canceled, stuck late at work and unsuspecting. He was instead surprised with a ring at Insieme, the restaurant located beneath his law firm. Ted planned the pair’s 175-person wedding in six months. Their legal ceremony was at Greenwich Town Hall on January 28, and their religious ceremony was at the Bowery Hotel; it was the venue’s first gay wedding. “We wanted something whimsical, dark, and eccentric,” says Ted. Guests dined on Italian fare from Gemma at tables adorned in “Tim Burton–esque” swamp scenes. The couple danced the hora, then the band launched into a “disco-free” set. “Even though it seems like it was over in two seconds, we remember everything about the day,” says Ted, “from dancing to Lady Gaga to our fathers’ heartfelt speeches.”
The Details:
Rings: Klim Jewelry (Geremy); Cartier (Ted)
Flowers and Calligraphy: Emily Thompson
Officiants: Reverend Patricia Ackerman, Ted’s aunt (civil); Rabbi Hara Person (religious)
Photographs: Mel Barlow at Mel & Co.
Ted Ackerman & Geremy Kawaller “We were married in front of the fireplace, where there are all these logs stacked up, and our birch chuppa was covered with brambles and vines. We wanted a wedding that was cozy and unusual.” Photo: Mel Barlow at Mel & Co.
“The Bowery Hotel space is like Morocco mixed with a medieval castle. There are deer heads on the walls and amazing chandeliers overhead.” Photo: Mel Barlow at Mel & Co.
“I wore Lanvin, and Geremy [right] wore Zegna. We went shopping separately because we didn’t want to look the same. I’m a big shopper, so I took it as an excuse to buy whatever I wanted.” Photo: Mel Barlow at Mel & Co.
Slide Header Address, date, or similar info here. For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it. Photo: ” 2010 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York