NAME: Annette Lusardi
TITLE: Legal secretary for the firm of Hahn & Hessen LLP
FLOOR: 36th
CLAIM TO FAME: Married at the building last February
QUOTE: "We felt like movie stars. So many people photographed us at
once."

Television cameras and newspaper photographers surrounded the couple on their wedding day.

Like most brides, Annette Lusardi wore a long white gown on her wedding day. But her ceremony didn't take place at a local church, temple or synagogue. Lusardi and her husband, Joseph Martucci, exchanged their vows in a "higher" place. They were married on the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day.

"As we approached New York City in the limo, we could see the Empire State Building rising above all the others," says Lusardi. "It really added to the excitement."

Lusardi's love affair with the building began long before her decision to get married there.

"I used to visit the Empire State Building when I was a child," she says. "My grandfather owned a barbershop nearby, so whenever we would visit him, we would always make it a point to stop."

Lusardi has worked in the building for two years, as a legal secretary for the firm of Hahn & Hessen. Few people would think of getting married at their workplace, but for Lusardi it was different.

"We figured since we were engaged at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, we thought that it would be only appropriate to get married at an historic landmark in our homeland," she says.

And so together with her husband, Lusardi wrote an essay describing why they wanted to be married there and submitted it to the building management. Less than a year later, they found themselves surrounded by tourists, television cameras and newspaper photographers.

"We felt like movie stars," says Lusardi. "So many people photographed us at once… As soon as we were through with our vows, two news crews with cameras charged in to interview us."

This in turn grabbed the attention of passersby, which according to
Lusardi, only heightened the frenzy they were in. Even though there were nine other couples getting married there that day, Lusardi says it felt as though their wedding was the only one taking place.

"The crowd of foreign tourists didn't know what to make of the spectacle and began taking our picture also, not knowing who we were, but thinking we must be important since the media was surrounding us. Knowing that we would be in photo albums of strangers across the globe, as well as in newspapers and TV screens across the U.S., made the day more fun than we ever could have imagined."

-- Marta Ferrer

The Photographer | The Witness | The Bride | The Media Man | The Dog