Married, Finally, After Six Cancellations

A month later, the Rev. Jennifer Deaton, a longtime friend of the Flowers family, held an Episcopalian marriage blessing for them at the house of Dr. Flowers’s parents in Ridgeland. Religion had not been a factor in their Bogotá ceremony, “but we felt it was important to both of our moms to have some blessing from God,” Ms. Blum said. Her mother traveled from Denver to be there.

By then, they had already started rescheduling appointments with the Manhattan Marriage Bureau — six in total. Work was to blame. “It’s almost impossible for us both to get time off during business hours,” he said. “I spend half my time in the I.C.U.”

When they showed up at 8 a.m. on Jan. 2, Ms. Blum worried they would be turned away since they’d canceled so many times. “I kept telling Robbie, they’re going to say we can’t do it,” she said. But within an hour, Madeline Plasencia, an officiant with the City Clerk’s office, had made it official: The bride, wearing jeans and Converse sneakers, was on her way to work, a married woman.

On This Day

When Jan. 2, 2024

Where The Manhattan Marriage Bureau

Delayed But Delighted After work that night, Ms. Blum and Dr. Flowers, who also wore jeans to the ceremony, didn’t do much to celebrate. “We had a quiet night in, we cooked and watched TV,” Dr. Flowers said. The weekend after was a little more festive: The couple escaped for a brief honeymoon in Turks and Caicos.

A Co-worker Comes Through Hope Miodownik, one of Dr. Flowers’s colleagues from the hospital, served as a witness. Because of the holidays, loved ones “either weren’t in town, or they were working,” Dr. Flowers said. “I mentioned to Hope that we were having difficulty finding someone to witness, and she gladly volunteered.” Dr. Flowers hopes to complete his fellowship at NYU Langone Health in June 2025.