Taylor Ann Ackerman and Ross Edward Steinberg were married Saturday, July 13, 2024 on the beach at the Village Suites Bay Harbor in Northern Michigan. Taylor wore a white, rose-patterned lace dress with a parasol, veil, and pearl necklace, and Ross wore a custom black tuxedo with a pocket boutonnière.
I don’t take usually take requests from readers. I’m not a hotel lounge pianist; particularly not wedding stories. Once you start, there’d be no end to it. But a certain cherished couple asked me to write an announcement. I’m complying because, well, as their wedding approached, and not wanting to be a source of trouble, as so often happens, I came up with my Three Wedding Rules, which I will share now because they were so helpful: 1) none of this is about me. 2) do whatever the bride wants. 3) don’t argue with anybody about anything.
The wedding party was barefoot on the sand. They wore tan suits and eucalyptus dresses. The florals were muted roses and orchids. The weather was perfect. The bride’s brother Brennan officiated the interfaith ceremony. Ross’s brother, Kent, was best man, and Taylor’s sister, Ellie, was maid of honor. Our dog, Kitty, and Taylor’s family dog, Rosie, were the flower girls.
Every wedding is news. The marriage rate in the United States is plummeting — one in four Americans over 40 has never been married. This couple bucked the trend because, well, love. Every speech at the wedding circled back to it.
At the reception, the couple danced their first dance under a tent to “Say Yes to Heaven” by Lana Del Rey. The centerpieces included their favorite books. Their tables were named after board games, and the signature cocktails were named after their childhood pets — including an NA cocktail, which the groom’s father appreciated. The couple did the hora held aloft in chairs, in the Jewish fashion. As darkness fell, much of the wedding party, including the bride and groom, ended up celebrating in the lake, a very Gatsby touch.
Sun-Times readers have been reading about Ross all his life. He and Taylor first met at a board game club hosted by New York University School of Law on a Friday evening during the fall of 2019. The two played Wingspan in the basement of NYU Law’s D’Agostino Hall.
The groom, 28, of Northbrook, Illinois, is a 2018 graduate of Pomona College and a 2021 graduate of NYU Law. Following law school, he worked as a litigation associate at a New York City law firm and then as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco before joining the Federal Trade Commission’s Washington, D.C. office as an antitrust attorney.
During the COVID spring of 2020, NYU Law began hosting classes online, depositing Ross onto our sofa. He spent multiple hours every day talking on the phone and playing online board games. My wife knew something special was occurring by the way his tone changed.
“He’s FLIRTING with someone,” she told me, infusing that verb with surprise and delight. “I can hear it in his voice.” For a while the mystery woman was “T” — my boy jealously guards information, perhaps to keep it from ending up in the newspaper.
The bride, 29, of Charlevoix, Michigan, is a graduate of Central Michigan University. In 2018 she received a master’s degree in global affairs with a concentration in international law and human rights from NYU and graduated from NYU Law in 2022. She works for the tenant defense unit of the Legal Aid Society in the Bronx.
By the time 2021 rolled around, Taylor had a name, and Ross was visiting at her parents’ house in Michigan. In the spirit of fairness, the couple came here, and stayed with us for seven weeks. A great way to get to know a person — over coffee in the kitchen, or driving to Springfield for the first vaccine.
“She is a very polite and thoughtful young lady who obviously thinks the world of Ross,” I jotted in my journal. My wife viewed her simply as “joyous.” Taylor’s father is a businessman — she grew up all over the world: South Korea, Germany, Singapore. I knew my wife and I were all in when Easter rolled around, and we asked what was needed to celebrate the holiday: daffodils and a cake shaped like a lamb. They gave each other baskets.
The glow from the wedding has lasted a month, so far, and I’m starting to believe it will last forever. The adjective my wife uses to describe the wedding is “magical,” though I prefer “perfect.”