NEW YORK - Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Judith Nathan exchanged vows on the lawn of Gracie Mansion yesterday evening to the strains of "Ave Maria," sung by Ronan Tynan, the Irish tenor.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg presided over the wedding, an occasion rife with the theatrical flourishes dear to the couple, both opera lovers.
Bloomberg, arriving with his companion, Diana Taylor, said before the ceremony that he was not nervous. "I don't have to do a lot," he said. "It's sort of reading, and hoping that nobody objects." Nobody did.
Tynan sang again at the reception and dinner for 400 guests, who included Yogi Berra, Henry A. Kissinger, Beverly Sills, Vera Wang, Donald J. Trump, former New York Gov. Hugh L. Carey, Barbara Walters and Joseph Volpe, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. Several members of the Giuliani administration also attended, including Thomas Von Essen, the fire commissioner; Howard Safir, the police commissioner; and Cristyne L. Nicholas, former press secretary.
The best man was Giuliani's son, Andrew, 17. Donald Stish, Nathan's father, gave the bride away. Whitney Mayer Nathan, 18, Judith Nathan's daughter, was the maid of honor. "Deliver Me," sung by the soprano Sarah Brightman, introduced the first dance.
The evening's extravagance was reflected in the wedding decor and the bridal gown. Nathan wore a made-to-order oyster-colored satin dress with a train accented by Swarovski crystals and pearls. Giuliani wore a custom-tailored suit by Brioni.
The wedding was a metaphor for a relationship more romantic than either had previously let on. Nathan, 48, the managing director of a philanthropy that raises money for the Twin Towers Fund, maintains an office in the same Times Square building where Giuliani runs a consulting business. Though they often work and travel together, they have maintained a profile so discreet that even now they refuse to reveal how and where they met. But in an interview before the big day, they shared some details about their courtship.
Their first encounter was momentous. "It was the thunderbolt," said Giuliani, 58, a reference to the description the novelist Mario Puzo used in The Godfather to characterize the moment when Michael Corleone first spied Apollonia, his Sicilian bride-to-be. "Our attraction was instantaneous. There was almost something mystical about the feeling."
Nathan interjected: "Rudy truly is a romantic."
