The Gem Theatre Wedding | Cary & Meghan

If you find me a better location than the Gem Theatre in Detroit for Cary and Meghan’s wedding, I will send you a bottle of wine. There just isn’t a more natural or better-suited venue for these theater folks.

But first, let’s travel back to the beginning of their story…in their words. (Get ready for some twists and turns, I could read this over and over!)

“It all starts in New York City back in 2016, when Cary and Meghan first met through their mutual friend Sylvia. Meghan’s an actor, Cary’s a playwright, and Sylvia’s a playwright who went to grad school with Meghan and is now in a writers’ group with Cary. In other words, it’s a theater thing. Sylvia invites Cary and Meghan to come see a play with her, which they do, but they’re both dating other people at the time, so it’s merely a friendly outing. The fact that the play they see together is set in Detroit is just a bit of dramatic foreshadowing.  A series of tragically missed connections follow Unbeknownst to each of them, Meghan performs in a short-play festival that also includes a play written by Cary. (Actually, this happened a few months earlier, but let’s not split hairs.) They both attend a birthday party of Sylvia’s at her Upper West Side apartment, but they’re still tied up in those pesky relationships. And finally, when Cary and Meghan are each newly single, Sylvia plans to pair them up at yet another theater gathering—but Cary shows up with someone else! Meghan shrugs. Fate foiled once more.

Flash forward a year to the fall of 2017. Meghan has since left New York and moved home to Michigan, but she’s back in the city for a month to appear in a show. Cary, meanwhile, is single again. Coincidentally, he thinks of Meghan and texts Sylvia: “Hey, whatever happened to your cute friend?” Even more, coincidentally, Sylvia is sitting next to Meghan when she receives this text. Meghan has Sylvia give Cary her number, and they make a date the next day—for that night.  Sunday, September 17, 2017. A historic evening. Cary and Meghan meet at 8 p.m. at DTUT, a hipster cafe-bar on the Upper East Side, near where Cary works his day job. They sip red wine and talk for four hours until the lights come on and the barista/bartender boots them out. The rest is history. Even when Cary hears that Meghan’s actually living in Michigan now and is in New York for only a couple more weeks, they’re undeterred.  They make the most of these whirlwind weeks, roaming the city hand in hand like the lovestruck protagonists of a Nora Ephron movie.

Then Meghan’s show ends, she leaves for Michigan, and they embark on a long-distance relationship that stretches over nine months, with both braving the indignities of Spirit Airlines to take turns visiting each other. Until at last, in June of 2018, Cary, a lifelong East Coaster, makes the Midwestern leap and moves from New York to join Meghan (and her intrepid dog, Roo, whom he’s also fallen for) in Ann Arbor. Cary proposes to Meghan at a Christmas tree lighting in neighboring Ypsilanti in November of that year. They take their time enjoying their engagement, but then, to their surprise, a global pandemic strikes in 2020. So they plan their wedding for September 2021, at Detroit’s Gem Theatre—a theater, naturally—almost four years to the day of their first real date.

In the end, as they learned in Greek Drama 101, you can’t fight fate.”

I argue that their love story could be written into a pretty killer script (hint, hint, Cary).

And now comes the culmination of all of those moments threaded between mutual friends, mutual interests, and fate: their wedding day.

The morning began for the girls at the Siren Hotel with hair, makeup, and a lot of chatter. Excitement can’t truly describe what everyone felt in the air. The couple couldn’t wait for the long-anticipated first look. (If I’m being honest, I couldn’t wait either!)

When the moment finally came, Cary’s eyes said more than any words could describe as he gazed at his bride. We wandered a few city blocks and took photos with the family and their wedding party. Their pups even met us at Capitol Park for a few photos.  After some lovely portraits, we headed back to the Gem Theatre to touch up and get ready for the main attraction.  Folks from all over gathered to watch these two tie the knot. The rest of the night was simply enchanting.

Congratulations, Cary & Megan!

Just a short postscript—Meghan called me Friday night to give me a head’s up that they were chosen to have their wedding story shared in the New York Times. I proudly own three copies of the printed paper from that day.