Flynn/Sowell Wedding at New York Yacht Club

   The actual proposal was not how David Sowell had planned it. He intended to propose at sunset to his girlfriend Alexandra Flynn, with an engagement ring that he had painstakingly designed. But when the ring finally arrived from the jewelers, David was so excited that he popped the question in the middle of the couple's new house in Culver City, California, amid scattered moving boxes and a barking dog. "He got down on both knees and asked me to marry him," Alexandra says. "Once he started talking, I could not hear anything. I made him ask me four times before I believed him!"
   The couple met when Alexandra interviewed for a job at a commercial, music video and film postproduction company in Los Angeles that David owned. Alexandra got the job, and as the months passed, the couple's relationship bloomed. "We designated every Sunday to 'us' and usually drove up the coast to Malibu to hang out on the beach," Alexandra says. "It just felt natural that we would end up together."
   Alexandra chose Newport as the destination because it was her childhood home, and because she and David vacationed there every summer. The New York Yacht Club, where Alexandra and her family have been members since she was young, provided the perfect harborfront backdrop for the nuptials and reception because of its "old world charm."
   Alexandra incorporated a ginkgo leaf design throughout the d�cor scheme in the Yacht Club, weaving together the colors green, pink and white. The ginkgo tree is the oldest living tree species; the symbol of longevity and good luck was meant to wish the couple a long and happy life together. The groomsmen's boutonnieres, menus and place cards also included a ginkgo leaf.
   Despite the beautiful d�cor and meticulous planning, the wedding was hardly without incident. After the ceremony, a member of the wedding party accidentally spilled a Dark and Stormy cocktail down the front of Alexandra's Vera Wang gown. The weather also went the way of the errant drink - it poured. Not one, not two, but three hurricanes (Hannah, Ike and Gustav) blew onto Aquidneck Island that day. The tent company cancelled the large main tent for the reception two days before the wedding due to bad weather reports, so the Yacht Club staff moved the entire wedding indoors. The couple exchanged vows in the Yacht Club's chapel (Station 10), and they danced late into the night in the Yacht Club's clubhouse.
   Alexandra says that her most cherished moment was walking into Station 10 with her parents, Thomas and Ingrid M. Flynn of Newport. "It was packed with our closest friends and family," she says. "Seeing Dave standing at the end of the aisle smiling, nothing else mattered at that moment."
   As a wedding gift, David gave his new bride a gift she won't soon forget - a two-week honeymoon to the French Polynesian Islands. - RC