The subway platform was jammed shoulder-to-shoulder. Kids with backpacks on their way home from after-school activities, waiters on their way to dinner shifts, and all sorts of working types shuffled on and off the trains. In front of me stood three men in Yankee caps, each wearing a jersey or a navy-blue shirt with the NY logo.

The wood shop was quiet, its high ceiling not echoing the buzz of loud table saws, its bare floors not being showered by wood shavings fresh off the planer. In the carpenters’ office, beneath the tall pegboards filled with tools, sat three workers in paint-stained dungarees. They were reading books or nose-deep in crossword puzzles.

The guests had taken their seats, the music had started and the groom had taken his place alone in front of the murmuring crowd, the orange sunset glowing like a spotlight on his squinting face. Within minutes the presiding reverend joined him and the two stood like bronze statues in the glimmering light, silent and smiling as they watched the bridal procession march toward them.