This Saturday, after Victoria Perry and James Kostadaras exchange vows at a church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, complete their first dance accompanied by a 12-piece orchestra, and cut the first slice of their five-tier cake, they will move on to the next portion of their wedding: a full-blown watch party to cheer on the New York Knicks when they play the San Antonio Spurs in game 5 of the N.B.A. finals.
“We both grew up in New York City and are lifelong Knicks fans,” explained Perry, 33, a freelance writer and film producer. Kostadaras, 34, is a financial adviser. “Even though it’s our wedding, we need to see this game,” she said.
At 8:30 p.m. sharp, the time of tip-off, guests will head to the lower level of the Midtown Manhattan events venue, where a sports bar will be set up. Servers will dole out sliders, pizza, and orange and blue pompoms, a nod to the team’s colors. The game will be played on multiple screens, and a D.J. will play East Coast hip-hop tunes.
“I’m so excited,” said the bride, who still lives in Manhattan. “I can’t even imagine anything better than cheering on the Knicks with all the people I love the most who are also crazy fans.”
With the Knicks competing in the N.B.A. finals for the first time in 27 years and just one win away from a championship, Perry couldn’t help but imagine the team’s victory becoming part of her wedding day.
“I do feel if we had the moment where we won, and we took the whole thing at my wedding, it would be the most special day of my life for so many reasons.”
The N.B.A. finals are colliding with peak wedding season around the country, including New York City, leaving some couples with a conundrum. If a finals game falls on their wedding date, do they proceed as planned and risk guests being glued to their phones all night, or incorporate the game into the big day?
“I really needed the Knicks to sweep, because I was like, there is no way I can have this on my wedding day,” said Amanda Hall, 26, who works in communications at a consulting firm and whose wedding is also Saturday. “I have been planning this for two years.”
When that didn’t happen, she felt slightly annoyed. “It adds a little stress if I’m honest, because now I know people are going to be distracted, and I am going to be distracted,” said Hall, who lives in Fort Salonga, N.Y., with her fiancé, John Scarpelli, 28, a videographer.
The couple decided they had no choice but to put up a television in the corner of their wedding venue, the Watermill in Smithtown, N.Y., since most of their guests are from New York. “If people were hiding, watching the game, that would bother me more,” Scarpelli said.
Would a loss kill the vibe? “New York is pretty resilient,” he said. “If it doesn’t go the way people want, they will use it as an excuse to drink more.”
Couples who have already faced this dilemma said it ended up working in their favor.
Benson Yunatanov, 26, a resident doctor, and Veronica Iskhakov, 24, a physician assistant student, got married on June 3, the first game of the N.B.A. finals, at Da Mikele Illagio, a venue in Queens, where the couple lives. After multiple guests reached out to them beforehand to see if the game would be on, they made a decision to screen the last few minutes of the fourth quarter on a projector.
“It was the best decision we made,” Yunatanov said. “Guests were able to party and watch instead of sitting and watching.” The D.J. even blasted, “Go New York Go,” a song associated with the Knicks, and guests cheered and danced.
“It made our wedding unique,” said Iskhakov, who had been worried the game would take away attention from the wedding celebration.
Pre- and post-wedding events are also being affected by the basketball run.
When Emma Aufrichtig, 31, who works for a health care company, and Ryan Alpert, 31, a law school student, saw the schedule for the Eastern Conference Finals, she was relieved that game three fell during the rehearsal dinner on May 23 and not the actual wedding on May 24. “I had rain at my wedding, and I kept thinking it was better to have rain than a Knicks game,” she said.
Still, the couple, who live in the Upper East Side, made changes to the pre-wedding event, moving the speeches to earlier in the evening so guests could watch the game in the restaurant.
The Knicks won, and the couple celebrated the next day at their wedding by tossing T-shirts with the team’s logo and their names on them.
The scheduling conflicts are also taking a toll on guests.
Alex Halloran, 30, who works as an assistant manager for a music publishing company and lives near Columbus Circle, is a groomsman in his friend’s wedding in West Hartford, Conn., this weekend.
He is the only New Yorker in the wedding party and knows no one cares about the Knicks as much as he does. “The day is not about me,” he said. “But there has been this thing looming over me like, ‘Hey, I might be in a wedding during game five.’”
Would he be willing to skip the game?
“No chance,” he said. Halloran is already planning to find a television somewhere at the wedding venue.
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