Corey Perrine for The New York Times
The wedding took place on Vanderbilt Beach at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Naples, Fla. before 165 guests.
After a decade-long courtship, Nicholas Keefe was as ready as one could be to wed Claire Lieberman, his high school sweetheart. Yet as their wedding day approached, there was one detail about it that sparked nervousness in Mr. Keefe, a former high school football, basketball and baseball player: the first dance.
Sure Mr. Keefe, now 28 and a foreign-exchange specialist with Gain Capital, a financial firm in New York, was quick enough on his feet. His fiancée, however, is someone whose commitment to dance as an art form was a serious one, having started out to become a ballerina at age 4, and who had once been with the junior company of Ballet Chicago and also appeared with the Joffrey Ballet in some Chicago performances of "The Nutcracker."
To some extent, his nerves had been put in check by the brief set of lessons he and Ms. Lieberman had taken, and the dance steps they had practiced ahead of their Feb. 23 ceremony in Naples, Fla. But on their wedding day, as the band began its version of "The Best Is Yet to Come," the couple's choreography quickly unraveled as they realized there wasn't enough room for all of the moves they wanted to do.
"About three steps in, neither one of us had any idea of what was going on, so we just fumbled around," recalled Ms. Lieberman, also now 28 and an associate vice president in New York with AllianceBernstein, the investment management concern. As they moved around the floor, Mr. Keefe began to improvise, shifting his gaze from her eyes to his own feet for his big finish, in which he spun his new bride around (something she was not expecting) and lifted her off her feet.
With that, the crowd went wild.
"I tried to go along with it, but I guess everyone knew I was surprised," said Ms. Lieberman, who had been on track to become a professional dancer until the demands of her training program with Ballet Chicago, she said, required her to trim her class schedule at New Trier High School in her hometown, Winnetka, Ill. Instead, she decided to jettison all of it in favor of spending her last two high school years at Milton Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school that happened to have a good dance program.
"I had always known at some level that ballet was not the right career for me," she said. "I loved food too much and didn't want to be limited from trying out every sort of activity and adventure."
On her first day at Milton, she caught the eye of Mr. Keefe, a longtime day student who lived with his family in Boston. "I was intrigued by her," he said. She couldn't say the same. Boarding students like herself did not hang out with the day students.
Although their paths crisscrossed several times it wasn't until 2003, midway through their senior year, that they finally spoke. Ms. Lieberman said this occurred only because of "a crazy, random turn of events on my birthday" — something she had planned to observe with a trip to Miami. But a roommate had accidentally deleted a paper from her computer, prompting a request from the school's dean that she stay behind and work on it.
Her friends gave her a party anyway, where Mr. Keefe put in an appearance. "We talked all night," she said. "And, after midnight, we started kissing."
Things accelerated quickly after a Valentine's Day movie date in 2003, to the point that they decided to live together in Boston after graduation from Milton. It was a memorable summer. "We would go to get ice cream, drive around listening to Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, and just talk," Ms. Lieberman said. "Falling in love was an unspoken thing." When Mr. Keefe was headed to Bates College in Maine and Ms. Lieberman to Middlebury in Vermont, they made a pact to remain a couple.
Even so, Ms. Lieberman was adamant they would have their own lives and not necessarily see each other every weekend. "I didn't want us not to experience college," she said. "Otherwise, I knew, deep down, we would be bitter and angry with one another."
By KATHERINE ALBERS 02 Mar, 2013
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/fashion/weddings/claire-lieberman-and-nicholas-keefe-vows.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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