Honest New York Times Wedding Announcements

Alison Mulvaney, 26, and Derek van Hurt, 27

Alison Mulvaney and Derek van Hurt met at a gala for orphans’ rights hosted by Joshua Kushner in 2009. Four months later, happily unattached and relieved to learn that the African-American member of Derek’s pledge class would not be pressing charges, a casual friendship blossomed into romance.

“I had just ended a serious relationship, and I wasn’t looking for a commitment,” Alison explains. Little did she know, Derek had other designs. He surprised her with a last-minute trip to Paris for Labor Day weekend, where he presented her with a sparkling engagement ring, a bottle of absinthe—the bride’s favorite—and an ironclad non-disclosure agreement. “I knew I had to seize the moment before it slipped through my fingers and out the hotel room door,” Derek said. “My grandfather taught me that.” It was a successful approach. “His strength and sense of determination won me over,” Alison admits.

On July 21st, the couple married at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in a small ceremony attended in the presence of their family, closest friends, and former newscaster Charlie Rose.

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Sasha Krauz, 31 and Henry Ackerman, 30

When Henry Ackerman was struck by an UberBLACK, he could only think of two things: Sasha Krauz, his girlfriend of three years, and Oscar, the healthcare startup founded by Joshua Kushner in which he had recently invested. Sasha, a graduate student in social work at New York University, and Henry, an angel investor and serial entrepreneur, met at a networking event hosted by the Harvard College Alumni Association in the City of New York, where they quickly discovered a shared passion for French pastry, expressionist painting, and pharmaceutical cocaine.

These two will wed August 25th where the spark of their relationship first ignited, in the Harvard Club’s Oak Room, beneath a statue of Depression-era financier and embezzler Richard Whitney. Alan Dershowitz, a friend of the groom’s family, will officiate.

The bride grew up in Roslyn, New York, the daughter of Phil Krauz, founder of the SkyBridge Real Estate Investment Trust, and Eileen Krauz (née Rothstein), the granddaughter of businessman and baseball aficionado Arnold Rothstein. The groom is the son of Charles Ackerman, personal lawyer for taxi entrepreneur Evgeny “Gene” Freidman, and Dana Ackerman, a former spokesperson for the Mogilevich Pickled Herring Corporation.

After their honeymoon tour of Moldova and Cyprus, the couple will be making their primary home at 666 5th Avenue in Manhattan, with a winter residence in Palm Beach, Florida. The bride will be keeping her name.

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A Couple That Can Handle the Turns

There might be little left to excite when it’s your job to travel at breakneck speeds, but Argentine racer Diego Zambrano, 32, found just that in Helen Whitaker, 26, a Master’s student of Social Entrepreneurship at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Cautious after a love affair with a Peruvian freighthopper failed to go the distance, Helen didn’t plan to get involved with any paramours during her summer internship with the Water for the People Initiative, a division of the Coca-Cola Company. “But Diego made me feel like the only girl in the world,” Helen explains, “even though we both lead such busy lives. Me, with my internship, and Diego with his racing, the late-night meetings with potential sponsors, or when sometimes he just has to step out for an hour or two to look for a racing uniform or buy a pack of cigarettes. But he has this ability to understand you that American men just don’t have.”

With her time in Argentina soon ending, Helen and Diego thought that their love affair might be as brief as an afternoon picnic in Bosques de Palermo, cut short by an emergency meeting with Diego’s racing sponsor on the other side of town. But fate intervened in the form of tech wunderkind and wellness advocate Joshua Kushner, who arrived in Buenos Aires on a talent-scouting mission. Struck by Diego’s rugged sincerity and commitment to physical fitness, the self-made businessman offered to sponsor the young man’s visa.

Although initially reluctant to leave the comforts of his mother’s home cooking and close friendship with his cousin, Argentine body paint model Clara Rodriguez, Diego agreed to Helen’s generous offer to loan him a year’s supply of Berlitz English cassettes, packed up his racing gear, and secured a studio apartment just thirty-five minutes from Helen’s flat in Morningside Heights. And after a comical misunderstanding caused by Helen inadvertently consuming some week-old Pad Thai leftovers, Diego realized that he had learned not only the English subjunctive, but also that he was ready to commit.

The couple were married at the bride’s favorite childhood farm in Gansevoort, NY, where the couple exchanged heartfelt vows and the groom, true to his entrepreneurial spirit, excused himself during the reception to discuss a sponsorship deal with the maid of honor.

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