NEW YORK – Elena Sarkissian and Demetrios Orfanoudis got married on Jan. 21. to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity on East 74th Street.
Ms. Sarkissian, 44, a real estate broker was sitting alone in the back seat of a rented Bentley. “I ended up spending 45 minutes circling the cathedral,” she said to New York Times. What she was experiencing instead was the pandemonium of Manhattan in the grip of the Women’s March, held one day after President Trump’s inauguration, a protest that drew hundreds of thousands, choking the city with traffic.
The bus, carrying friends and family, who came from as far as Athens did not make it for 40 minutes or more.
“I married my best friend,” Ms. Sarkissian said after an hourlong traditional Greek Orthodox ceremony that included chanting, crowns and a priest in robes.
Ms. Sarkissian and Mr. Orfanoudis met in September 2011 after a monthlong telephone courtship set in motion by a friend of Ms. Sarkissian, Dr. Mary Vouyiouklis Kellis.
“My parents always wanted me to meet someone I could happily spend my life with,” said Mr. Orfanoudis, who, like Ms. Sarkissian, was raised Greek Orthodox; he cannot personally rebut the stereotype about traditional Greek families’ obsession with seeing their children settle contentedly into marriage, he said. “I had been hearing some of that for a while. I just never found the right person.”
Col. Alex Stathopoulos, a longtime friend of Mr. Orfanoudis from Washington, was the koumbaros, as New Yor Times report.
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