We had planned to marry on Carmel Beach with friends and family. Until one late afternoon, while enjoying wine together with our friends Peterson and Susan Conway, Lacy Buck and Bob Buck, all of whom insisted, "more than anyone, the two of you should get married in Paris. The four of us have arranged for a trip to Paris. Please join us." We did.

Our trip to Paris was a wedding gift from these friends. Peterson, who was familiar with Paris because he had lived there in his younger years, spoke fluent French. He arranged our itinerary throughout France, including a sampling of some of the finest cuisine in Paris.

We arrived in Paris two days before our wedding date, May 7, 2006, and checked into Hotel Pont Royal, one of the more celebrated small, luxurious hotels in Paris. From our third story room, I pushed open the window overlooking the streets of Saint-Germain Des Pres toward the Seine and the Louvre. "Hello Paris."

Later, off the lobby, we dined at the two-star Michelin restaurant, L'atelier de Joel Robuchon. I fell in love again... with foie gras. This love affair started with Foie Gras and Young Bamboo Shoots in Green Cabbage Foie gras would continue to seduce me daily throughout France.

In conversation, we basked in the memory of such past luminaries as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Francoise Sagan who long ago enjoyed drinks at this restaurant's Signature Bar. We closed our evening sipping on a 2001 Rothchild Paullac. We finished the night at midnight, bleary-eyed.

We woke at first light to the smells of fresh bread baking from the street below. My mouth still tasted of last night's wine. I slip from our bed and stand at the open window, looking out, to the right, then left, watching the city in its waking. Dark shadows from the room are leaving through the window, replaced with shimmering strips of colored lights from cars below, dance across our ceiling...Dagma, standing naked next to me at the window I say, "Botticelli's Birth of Venus."
"What?
"You."

On our first full day in Paris, Peterson took us on a tour: On the underground Metro to ride the Montmartre Carousel; to the Arc de Triomphe; to a lunch of lobster linguini and fie gras with truffle terrine, at Le Café Fouquets on the Champs-Elysees; to the Luxembourg Gardens by the Medici Fountains where we would get married; to the Louvre Museum; then dinner at Chez Georges, one of the best preserved bistros in Paris, and a favorite of my friend Julia Child. All of us started with foie gras and French bread. Then I enjoyed the veal sweetbreads in a light cream sauce with chanterelles, while Dagma had the duck breast. We dined with considerable laughter and friendliness with the other guests and finished dinner with tarte tatin, followed with cognac.

On the walk back to our hotel, on the Pont Neuf across the Seine, I leaned over the stone railing and looked down into the river. I'm dazzled by the reflection of city lights, water sounds and the quiet warbling of lovers on boats floated beneath us. I turned to her, took both of her hands in mine, and said, "This is the bridge that Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced on, in the film, An American in Paris?' Will you dance with me?"

"Yes. "I will make the music." I slipped my right arm around her waist, lifted her left arm by the hand, held her close, then spun her around and danced with her on the sidewalk, as cars past by us with horns and hoots. "Paris loves lovers," someone called out.

The next morning, I woke before light with an excited heart. I smelled rain. Yes, rain. Oh no! I thought it might not be pleasant for Dagma to get married in the wet. I got up, stuck my head out the window to find a heavy drizzle clouding streetlights. Not a real rain--but a threat. While the hotel could provide umbrellas for all of us, if it did rain tomorrow, I wanted Dagma to have her own umbrella. I pulled on my clothes, wrote my sleeping friend a note that I was taking a walk, and left the hotel to search for the umbrella shop I Googled on my phone in the elevator. It would be too early to find anything open at this hour, but I might locate what I wanted. Regardless, my walk would be a perfect place to practice singing the song I planned to sing to Dagma at our wedding. It was. The walk, in the company of intoxicating aromas of baking bread and freshly brewed coffee, was a heady experience. I felt in good voice, and the streets were all but empty except for a few cars, trucks making deliveries, and dog walkers. When I passed them by in song, all ignored me as though they often see men singing on the streets of Paris.

I was thrilled being totally involved in my musical adventure. I even looked around for available puddles that would beacon me into dancing and splashing my way through them as I passed by wet storefront windows, and fat leaves dripping from the tree-lined Saint Germain Boulevard. I became Gene Kelly, looking for an umbrella. And then I found it, the oldest, foremost umbrella shop in Paris, Madeleine Gely.

The window, bordered in mahogany, was filled with umbrellas of all different colors. Most of them standing in the display on their points like so many ballet dancers. There was one white umbrella fully open, hanging high in the window. From its tufted peak an ivory-colored cloth with a lacey scalloped edge, and clear jewels sewn about its top like raindrops. This was it. I cupped my hand around my face and pressed it to the glass door to see inside. I saw movement in the back of the shop. I knocked. "Hello." A woman came to the door and said through the glass while shaking her head, "Ferme." With my pleading hands open upward to my side, "I'm getting married outside tomorrow and need an umbrella for my bride. Can you please help me?"

She let me in. She spoke English with a generous smile. When I pointed to the umbrella I wanted, she explained that she had just finished making it, only a few minutes ago. It was mine. On the way back to the hotel, I tucked it safely wrapped in plastic, under my arm and continued singing my song. "I think I've got this." Drizzle in my face, prickles on the back of my neck, I stood across the street from the hotel and looked up counting floors to locate our window. There she was, standing at the open window in white cotton, looking down at me. I sang to her. No one threw shoes. Back in the room I presented my wet self to her and handed her the umbrella. "For your wedding."

This was to be a day of touring and shopping for necessary and wanted items: flowers and Champagne for the display us guys would create at the Medici Fountain, and flowers for the three women for their rooms; 'Songes' perfume for Dagma made by the premier perfumery in Paris, Annick Goutal; lunch of onion soup and a ham and cheese baguette at Café Hugo. After lunch a stop at Jean-Paul Hevin Chocolatier where I requested something special made for Dagma to pick up later and present to her that night.

We visited a rare book shop and purchased an old. hand-illustrated copy of 'Lady Chatterley, in French. Then onto to Musee Rodin and dinner at Au Chien Qui Fume (The Smoking Dog) for foie gras (of course) and Breast of Bresse Chicken with Morel Mushrooms. Back at our hotel as we prepared for bed I said, "Please sit here on the bed. I have something for you. With all the shopping we've done I suspect you may have thought about shoes from Paris. Well, I have something instead." I handed her the covered box and continued as she opened it, "A size eight, solid chocolate, high heeled shoe for you, made by the most renowned chocolatier in Paris. Yes, Cinderella, it will fit. But instead of putting it on your foot, perhaps we might eat it together someday with a glass of cognac."

Wedding Day

I woke early and left a note for Dagma on the bed. Wedding Day. Good morning, my friend...thank you for saying yes.' Thank you for honoring me by trusting me, for calling me out to be fully realized as love in your eyes. I'm down in the café having coffee and completing my marriage vows.

Dagma found me at the café in the hotel. She watched me from the doorway for a few minutes before I noticed her there. I said, "Good morning Dagma. Paris is sunny for us today. Can't talk." The waiter poured me coffee. She said, "We have one hour to get dressed and meet the others in the lobby. The taxis will be waiting."

We departed from our two cabs into the inner-city oasis of Luxembourg Gardens with its expansive, lush lawns surrounded by groves of chestnut and sycamore trees, gardens of flowers and sculptures. Bob, who was to marry us, Peterson and I finished decorating the large urns that bordered the reflection pool at the Medici Fountain with bouquets of flowers, while the ladies held back and strolled the gardens with the Sunday morning residents and tourists.

The park was awake with the buzz of participation. Small groups of people, who had noticed that something was about to happen by the fountain, started to gather. I readied my iPad at my feet to start the music for the song I would sing for her ("Making Memories of Us" by Keith Urban.) when it was time. The bride arrived at the fountain in her cream-colored dress with a see-through, flowered lace shawl over her shoulders. Susan and Lacy followed. I took Dagma's hand. We stood together with our backs to the fountain and statues above the water. We faced our friends and the gathering of onlookers. Bob who was legally authorized to perform the marriage, said, "I think we should move this along. We're attracting lots of attention." He read from his own words before giving Dagma, then me, the signal to read our vows to one another. When I finished, I started the music and began to sing my song to Dagma. When I finished and looked up from the tears in her eyes, I noticed, over her shoulder, two policemen walking in our direction. As we were pronounced married, we kissed to a burst of applause from the hillside of spectators. The policemen joined us with smiles and handshakes, and agreed to photos with the newlyweds. I kissed her again, and said, "Dagma, you are radiant. In this weather your umbrella is now a parasol." It opened like a tulip in full bloom, and I lifted it above her head. It glowed. "Thank you my husband."

We walked from the park arm-in-arm, six across, into the streets of Paris toward the Eiffel Tower where we had reservations for lunch, on the top, at 'Jules Verne' restaurant. After we settled at our table, we all toasted the day with Champagne. I looked at Dagma and said, "Here we are in the sky above the city of Paris, 360 degrees around us below. Let's breathe all this in for a moment. Paris will never be the same for us again."

We held hands across the menus that lay open. "What'll it be Precious, Red Mullet with Caramelized Eggplants and Swiss Chard with Combavas Juice, a slice of tomato, or the foie gras?" Yes, the meal was splendid.

The bells of Notre Dame announced themselves with authority. They own this part of Paris when they come alive. The cobblestones below our feet trembled, as did the glass of wine sitting before me. In awe, we clutched the edge of our table to feel the shimmering. Dagma looked at me and announced, "excuse me," then got up and walked toward Notre Dame. The crowd of tourists parted when she began to twirl before them to the bells' thunder-her wedding dress came alive in the spinning, her face, filled with wonder and joy. "So, this is Paris," I said to myself.