Every year, on the cusp of spring, Macy’s Department store in New York City’s Herald Square is home to its annual Flower Show. The week and a half long show transforms the world’s largest department store into a make-believe fairy tale world with towers of exotic flowers, and architectural landscapes, but for one lucky couple this year, the experience was more than make-believe.
Santina Bowers, a paralegal from Pasadena, got the chance to exchange wedding rings with New York Police Officer Moise Naolo in the middle of Macy’s, which has long been an iconic NYC landmark, on March 27, just before the show was set to begin.
The flower show was more than an idyllic setting for the nuptials though, it was where the couple first met in 2009; Bowers was visiting the city for the first time and Naolo was working his beat.
‘I was dying to ride the subway, as all good tourists should do,” Bowers shared with The New York Daily News about their first meeting. “He cautioned me, ‘That’s not a safe thing to do. You look like a tourist.’”
It wasn’t long before Naolo offered to give her a personal tour, and by the time Bowers went back to California the couple found themselves in a long distance relationship.
But Macy’s wasn’t just where the couple met and married, it was where Naolo proposed last July when Bowers was back for a visit. With the help of Macy’s Visual Team, Bowers was greeted with a sign that read ‘Santina, Will You Marry Me?’ when the groom-to-be took her back to the place where they first met.
And on Sunday evening the couple tied the knot in the handbag department of Macy’s, right under the Bouquet of the Day, and since the department store had played such a huge part in their romance, they graciously provided the Bridesmaid dresses, tuxedos, and even the wedding cake for all the guests who danced in the aisles that night.