Former Mayor Shares Wedding Stories to Celebrate Valentine's Day

It was 1996, and then-Mayor William Neary had just begun serving his first term. He was just learning the ropes and unsure of everything he was and wasn’t allowed to do when he got his first emergency call—a wedding.

 “My first wedding was about four days after I became mayor, and I didn’t even know if I could legally do it. I guess I was inaugurated on Tuesday and this was a Sunday when I got a call from a lady who said her uncle was just released from the hospital with terminal cancer, and wanted to see his youngest son married before he died. So they wanted to know if I could come by at 4 p.m. that day and perform the wedding,” he said. “When my wife came home I told her to get dressed and said ‘come on, we’re going to a wedding.’ ”

During his 12 years in office, Neary performed between 275 to 300 weddings for people of all ages and religions. It was one of those sometimes overlooked “responsibilities” he had that also gave him a unique perspective on people who made up the fabric ad community of East Brunswick.

“It was an honor and exciting for me, to be a part of peoples lives like that,” he said. “As mayor you’re always weighing the positive and the negative. But this is all positive. There is no downside. You learn to appreciate the responsibility you have and the respect they have for the office mayor.”

But of course, it was his first wedding that was most memorable. It turns out that even though the wedding was last minute, it was perfectly timed, as the father died later that week.

“We went over to the house, it was a small house and it was just filled with people, and it was hot in there,” he said. “We got to the dad and he was sitting in his chair with oxygen and pajamas and a robe on, and I’m reading the words for the first time and filling in the names in the blanks as I go and I get to the point where I say ‘in sickness and health, ‘til death do us part.’ It was very emotional  type of wedding and I glad I to do it.. From what I know, the father died Thursday, so it was that bad, and I’m glad I got to do it. He got to see his son married.”

But that wasn’t his only “emergency wedding.” One year Neary got a call to go out to Sunrise of East Brunswick assisted living facility.

“She was 94 and he was 91 and the priest got sick, so I got an emergency call and had to come and do it,” he said.

Performing weddings also has given Neary the chance to learn more about the people who live in East Brunswick, as well as cultures from around the world.

“I did a wedding for a Russian couple, and they have a tradition of throwing coins as part of a ceremony. When they left and got out of the office, there were coins everywhere,” he said. “During the next wedding, on the way in one of the kids had picked up all those coins and they were stuffed in his pockets.”

He also has performed more than a few Indian weddings, which are events that take all day in some cases, as well as “multicultural” weddings where neither the bride nor groom was from the same country.

“There was one where the bride was from the Philippines and the groom from Peru, and they and met here (in America),” he said. "They had a big party. A real big party, and they had a slide show where they showed the kids growing up. I was invited to the wedding and I run into them from time to time. They’re a really nice couple, a happy couple and I get to see their kids.

“Sometimes I think about it, we were at a Peruvian/Philippine wedding, drinking Budweiser at the American Legion and dancing to Motown.”

But what about weddings on Valentine’s Day? That day of chocolates and flowers and romantic dinners out surely must have more than a few last minute nuptials scheduled. Of course, Neary has performed a few, but surprisingly, Valentine’s Day is a slow one.

“You’d always get at least one or two on Valentine’s Day, but most were at the end of the year, so people could get a tax deduction,” he said with a chuckle.