To make absolutely certain he got the woman of his dreams, Leonard proposed to Marianne twice. "The first time," says the new Mrs. Nihan, "was in San Diego, right before a dinner with my entire company. He had a beautiful ring box and inside was a large orange Valentine's Day heart candy ring that said, 'Marry Me.'" But candy never wears well and it isn't forever.

The second time Leonard proposed, it was at home in Jamestown, when he asked Marianne to come out to the pasture and feed his polo horses. This time, a three-carat diamond ring took the place of candy and the result was a date at St. Columba's Chapel in Middletown, followed by a reception at Conanicut Yacht Club. The yacht club made for the ideal venue and summed up the pair's wish to stay at home and keep it local.

As with her backless, Italian silk bridal gown, Marianne wanted the day "to be elegant and understated. I didn't want anything silly. We wanted it to be us. We had friends fly in from all over the world and Leonard's and my boys were the ushers." A mix of locally grown hydrangeas, starfish and that classic Newport color combination of blue, white and cream decorated the reception on their warm and perfectly sunny May day.

As a player on the Newport International Polo Team, Leonard's fellow teammates raced to the church just before a game, in order to raise their mallets for the newlyweds to exit the church through a tunnel of love. Their gesture was a meeting of Leonard's love of polo and the couple's desire to indulge their passions. There was little that went wrong that day, for the pair who swore off the second time around and then didn't. Even the polo team got a "W."-MP