I’m nervous. I’ve already finished off my second glass of diet soda and a bowl of cream of chicken soup (with rice) at the Blue Ribbon diner on State Street in Schenectady. My guests are on their way.
Some background information. Last week, I noticed that one of my photographs, a late night HDR composition of the illuminated General Electric sign at the GE Plant, was being linked from my flickr account to a website called brides.com. I found out the photo was linked to a “our upcoming wedding” site for Mindy and Scott, a young couple who put together a website for their guests who had never visited the Electric City before. And one of the things they wanted to show off was the GE sign.
I blogged about it in the TU and left it at that.
Meanwhile, someone alerted Mindy about her and Scott being in the TU, and she said, “We are? Why?” A quick look at the blog, and all of a sudden things start happening. And a big misunderstanding occurs. See, Mindy and Scott actually thought I was sore for them linking to the picture, when in fact I was actually quite flattered.
So here I am on a Saturday afternoon at the Blue Ribbon Diner, when my guests – Mindy and Scott – arrived. I gotta tell you, they are a cute couple.
Immediately any nervousness I had about the meeting dissipated. Mindy and Scott have been dating for about eight years, they share common interests, they’re excited about their May 1 wedding date and the reception at the Glen Sanders Mansion, and then after that it’s a honeymoon in Hawai’i.
“What islands are you visiting in Hawai’i?” I asked.
“Every one of them,” they replied.
Scott collects motion picture soundtracks, and has several hundred CD’s of some of the great movie conductors – most likely if you named any film, he could tell you whether it was scored by Elmer Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein, Danny Elfman, John Williams or Carl W. Stalling. Mindy has a fascination with international politics, and could probably name whether an African country is under coup d’etat, martial law, or simply going along at its own pace.
They even played competitive team trivia a few nights with their co-workers, back at Old Chicago (before it was Wolf’s 1-11).
“I missed one question there, and I was so mad about it,” said Mindy. “It was in what decade did Richard Nixon first run for government office, I had said the 1950’s and it was the 1940’s.”
Then came the moment. Inbetween the time I made my initial blogpost and the soon-to-be-newlyweds got in touch with me, I printed out a nice 8×12 glossy print of the GE sign at Ritz Camera in Crossgates Mall; then had it professionally mounted at Jo-Ann Fabrics, purchased a frame, and assembled the entire project together.
And as you can see, the couple seems to be very happy with their wedding gift.
I did joke with them that if they wanted to hire a wedding photographer, please look for anybody else but me – I’m not 100% comfortable with photographing weddings, too many things can go wrong.
“I know what you mean,” said Mindy. “I was the photographer for the wedding of one of my relatives, and Scott performed the music. To get the best shot, I actually had to walk into the beach water because they had a sandy beach wedding.”
And an extra brownie point for them – they use a Nikon camera. A D50, to be precise. That’s good quality.
Definitely a sweet couple. They’re going to enjoy a lot of years of wedded bliss.
Chuck The Writer 
Loved this story and your photo. It’s amazing how the old GE sign has so many different special meanings to folks.
I actually have the privledge of seeing the GE sign from my property in Scotia. When we first moved in the house needed a lot of work. My Uncle Bill who was a Exec with GE Syracuse for many years came to the see the house after we spent years of remodeling. Did he notice our hard work. Heck no, he was so thrilled that we could see the GE sign he missed everything else. 🙂 You would have thought we had a view of the White House.
Bill
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