It was a day of joy amid a time of grief.
Wearing white and beaming broadly, Laura Mardovich married family friend Robert Balemian Friday.
People exchange their wedding vows every day, but what is unusual about this marriage is that Laura is a Sept. 11 widow – perhaps the first to remarry.
The priest who pronounced Laura and Robert man and wife saw their union as an uplifting sign for a parish that lost 18 people in the terrorist attacks – a sign that Laura is moving on with her life.
But to some friends and relatives, seven months is a short time to grieve – and they are stunned by the marriage.
Their feelings are all the more intense because Laura, 41, and her first husband, Ed Mardovich, 42, had what by all accounts was a storybook union.
He was the president of the securities division of Euro Brokers, a thriving investment firm, and the couple and their four children lived in tony Lloyd Harbor on Long Island’s North Shore.
“They were a dream couple with beautiful children,” said Robert Nogrady, a longtime friend.
The night before the attacks, Laura and Ed celebrated their 16th anniversary at Alain Ducasse, the exclusive Manhattan restaurant.
Afterward, Laura recalled that for the first time she could remember, Ed seemed satisfied with his life.
“Nothing compares to that night we had,” she said. “He just had that look, like, ‘Maybe I am kind of special.’ We said we would remember that night when we’re 80 years old.”
But it was not to be.
The next morning Ed went to his office on the 84th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. When the first hijacked plane ripped into the WTC’s north tower, Ed called Laura on his cell phone to say he was safe.
He never came home – one of 60 Euro Brokers employees to die on Sept. 11.
After Ed’s death, Laura changed.
“You could tell she was moving on,” Nogrady said.
She closed out the family’s brokerage account without saying goodbye to Nogrady, who handled it.
“I was a little hurt,” he said.
She didn’t return calls from relatives, who interpreted this as meaning she didn’t want reminders of the past.
And she began seeing Balemian, a family friend and a widower with a child.
The couple got married at St. Patrick’s Church in Huntington and toasted their union at a reception at the Waldorf-Astoria. They left on their honeymoon yesterday.
The Rev. Steve Berbig, who performed the marriage ceremony, said it is common for widows and widowers to remarry quickly because they are used to being married.
“Widows remarrying is routine – but this was a little more special. It was uplifting and positive for everyone around.
“There was an understood silence of what happened before,” but the wedding’s focus was “the present and now,” Berbig said.
“As a priest, I was so happy for this couple. It was a great personal experience for me. People were very happy for them.”
One relative, however, was anything but happy. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I can see her wanting to go on with her life. I always wanted her to remarry, but I never thought she would do it this way.”