The most important detail at Victoria Perry’s traditional Greek Orthodox wedding this weekend is a very big television.
On the same night as her long-planned nuptials on Saturday, the New York Knicks will be taking · on the San Antonio Spurs for a shot at winning their first NBA title in more than half a century.
Perry, a 33-year-old film producer born and raised in New York, is spending several thousand dollars to convert the afterparty of her Manhattan wedding into something more like a high-end sports bar with a 70-inch TV screen to watch the game. Guests will munch on pizza and sliders, surrounded by Knicks-accented flower arrangements, team flags and pom-poms.
She called it “the best money we spent” out of the entire six-figure budget for the 300-person wedding.
“Basically our whole afterparty is going to be a Knicks watch party,” said Perry, who, like her fiancé, is a lifelong fan of the hometown team. “The last quarter, we’ll have everyone watching.”
The fates of this weekend’s brides and grooms were sealed on Monday, when the Spurs beat the Knicks in Game 3, guaranteeing that the best-of-seven series would stretch to at least a fifth game.
On Wednesday night, the Knicks overcame a 29-point deficit for the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, bringing their lead in the series to 3-1. That means the Knicks have a chance to win it all this weekend for the first time since 1973.
Couples who picked their wedding dates more than a year ago have been scrambling to decide whether to shell out more money to incorporate the matchup into their already expensive celebrations, or risk guests disappearing into their phones to catch the action.
Wedding planner Irene Katzias organized a wedding reception during Game 4 for a guest list of 400 people, mostly New Yorkers, at a luxury ski lodge in Park City, Utah, complete with a floral ceiling installation and two 15-foot trees.
The day before the $700,000 reception, her clients asked her to rearrange the space around two 72-inch screens to stream Game 4 of the Finals. And they wanted to start 30 minutes earlier so dinner would end in time for the Knicks-Spurs tipoff. The TVs only cost an additional $1,000, and the pair had already picked a blue-and-orange color scheme.
“Everything was very symmetrical and beautiful,” she said in an interview before the event. “Now, I am accommodating a large TV, which, as a designer, isn't my favorite request, but as a planner, it's important to really respect their story and respect their vision.”
Afterward, she said the evening was “epic.”
Not everyone wants to share their special day with the Knicks, or any sports team.
June is peak wedding season, and the expenses have been rising. Katzias said that luxury weddings in New York that cost more than $400,000 last year are running at least $50,000 more this year.
Jesse Richman-Reing, founder of New York-based Events By Jesse, said weddings in New York average $1,500 a person.
“Everyone’s giving the Knicks a shoutout,” said Richman-Reing, whose company has a wedding scheduled on Saturday. “But when people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and their guests are coming in, they’re trying to still keep it about themselves.”
Amanda Hall, 26, and John Scarpelli, 28, intentionally planned their 250-person wedding for June to avoid college football season. The couple spent $100,000 on the Long Island venue, food and decor.
“We were like ‘Perfect, these are the months that don’t have sports,’” said Hall, who works in internal communications.
After the Knicks lost Game 3, Hall said her phone started blowing up. Some family and friends wanted to know if they would be able to watch the game at the wedding, while others were checking in on how she was feeling about the overlap. Knicks fandom runs deep in both of their families. When Hall was born, her father had to leave a game at Madison Square Garden early to make it to the hospital.
At first, Hall and Scarpelli, a videographer for a construction firm, thought they might just put an iPad on the bar for people to check the score. But after Wednesday’s stunning win, they will have the game playing on TVs in the bar.
“Johnny and I have put so much love and effort into planning this wedding over almost two years that I’m just embracing it at this point,” she said. “Everyone’s going to be really excited for the wedding, for us, and even more excited that this huge game is happening.”
The good news for New York fans – and the mood at weddings filled with Knicks supporters – is that a victory on Saturday in Texas would clinch the title. A loss, however, only means the series isn’t over yet; the teams would return to the Garden on Tuesday for Game 6.
The excitement over the championship run has also created headaches, including disruptions to public transit and road closures. One New Jersey bride missed her final dress fitting in the city on Monday because of all the traffic, said Richman-Reing.
Knicks fans Matthew Yale and Jessica Frank have known for a while that the NBA Finals might coincide with their vows. Yale, a 29-year-old data analyst, jokingly posted “Knicks in five” on Instagram months ago.
But the realization that they would actually be sharing their big day with the championship series hit “like bricks,” said Frank, a 32-year-old project manager.
They have already spent close to $40,000 on their wedding in the Adirondacks, so they aren’t making pricey changes. Their DJ will announce score updates, and the reception is at a bar, where they are happy to have the end of the game on TV. They will pepper in other nods: a photo of the betrothed at a Knicks game, a team jersey and a “Go Knicks” sign.
“On top of all the energy and effort we've put into the day, I think it would be really difficult to move things and change it just for the game,” Frank said.
Kaitlyn Byrnes and Jonathan Raso have been together since high school. One of Byrnes’s first gifts to her now fiancé was tickets to a Knicks game in 2016. The 26-year-olds are getting married on Long Island this weekend, at the same time their favorite team tries to make history.
Byrnes is happy to give up some dancing during their reception to maybe show the final minutes of the game, and she also plans to make a cameo in her OG Anunoby jersey.
“My fiancé says it would be the best day of my life if we get married and the Knicks win the championship,” said Byrnes. “I said, ‘Yeah, but hopefully married a little bit more!’”