This Couple Got Married in the Paddock at the Belmont Stakes
How Chad Brown, the Saratoga Buglers, a shotgun officiant license, and a pair of Kohl's shoes made it all happen. PLUS: More scenes from Belmont Stakes Day.
For Lulu and Richard Argento, getting married was a formality they’d put off for years. The Saratogians were already parents of three, and Lulu had already taken Richard’s last name. They’d planned to finally make their marriage official at the courthouse this past Saturday morning, and then head over to Saratoga Race Course for the Belmont…
But why not kill two birds with one stone?
After some persuading by their friend Alex Esler, who managed to get a one-day marriage officiant license online, the couple was sold on tying the knot physically at the track. When Alex ran into trainer Chad Brown at the Belmont Ball on Friday night and told him about the wedding, he one-upped her idea. The Argentos shouldn’t just host their wedding on the track grounds…They should host it on hallowed ground: in the paddock.
And so, less than 24 hours in advance and with the help of Chad, plans were made to put on a wedding ceremony in the paddock between Races 9 and 10 (after the rain was forecasted to stop). Lulu picked up a dress at Styled by Lily; borrowed a veil from her neighbor, Kelly Broder; and bought her shoes at Kohl’s on Belmont morning. Her sister made her bouquet out of flowers from Hannaford, and her friends Noel McLaren and Katie Bliss served as impromptu day-of coordinators. On the guest list was whoever the couple knew that was already planning to be at the Belmont. “It was literally the night before that I found out this was going to happen,” Lulu says. “I have three toddlers. I didn’t even have time to text all my friends. I actually asked Alex at one point who was coming.”
But it all came together, and around 4pm on June 7, Lulu, Richard, and a few friends and family members headed into the paddock. “That looks like a bridle party,” the paddock security guard told me. (It’s a joke that works much better in writing than in person; he had to explain it to me.)
Someone had located the track buglers, and they played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as Lulu walked toward the center of the paddock where Richard was waiting. “I didn’t even think I was going to be walking down an aisle, and then all of a sudden I was like, ‘I don’t even know where to go—like, what do I do?’” Lulu says. “If we looked surprised, it’s because we were surprised.”
After the ceremony, Lulu tossed her bouquet from a box down into the crowd on the apron below, and then spent the afternoon at a table on the Porch, which had been graciously offered to them by Alex’s parents, Matt and Kristen Esler of Thirty Year Farm. After the big race, they moved the party to the Trackside Grill.
“We plan to have an actual wedding in the future where we invite everyone we know,” Lulu says, “but I don’t know how we’re going to outdo this one.”
—Natalie
Read on for more scenes from Belmont Day in Saratoga:
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