The Something Blue

Something old: the Garden itself, a century of encores in its rafters, where she used to count the crowd in tens of thousands. On Friday it held a single thousand, in black tie, and had been planted, in secret, with a garden — so the world's most famous arena could finally live up to its name.

Something new: two custom Diors, one marriage, an officiant named Sandler looking as solemn as he has ever managed. Best man: a brother. Man of honor: a brother. Because when you could have anyone famous, you still choose your brothers.

Something borrowed: Midtown, briefly. The city closed its streets like an envelope and lit its billboards purple — JUST&T MARRIED — a pun so happy no one dared to fix it.

Something blue: the Empire State Building, head to toe, the tallest item in the history of the rhyme.

On every plate, a favor with her old line: So it's gonna be forever — which started life as a warning and is now, simply, the plan.

They tipped the world for its trouble: twenty-six million, twenty charities, and the world, blushing, kept the change.

And because they married on the eve of the Fourth, their first full evening as a married pair the whole sky of the republic went off — rockets over every rooftop, both coasts, every small town where anyone had ever sung her in a parked car. None of it, officially, for them. All of it, obviously, for them.