Harlan Bratcher & Toby Usnik

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Harlan Ray Bratcher and William Louis "Toby" Usnik Jr. married on December 9, 2012, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Damaris Acosta, a deputy city clerk at the New York City Clerk’s Office, officiated.

Bratcher (born 1956) works in New York as the president and chief executive of Armani Exchange, a sportswear line of Giorgio Armani. He is on the board of governors of Parsons the New School for Design.

Usnik (born December 1962) is the head of corporate communications and chief sustainability officer at Christie’s in New York. Until 2006, he was the executive director of public relations at The New York Times Company. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Va. He received a master’s degree in university administration from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as another master’s, in international and comparative education, from Columbia. From 1990 to 1991, he was a Fulbright fellow at the Free University of Brussels, where he did research on a program that promoted international and comparative education in the European Union. He is on the board of the Empire State Pride Agenda.

The couple met at a Valentine’s Day party in 1997 organized by Bratcher for Sony in New York. About 3,500 guests came and went that evening, but Usnik caught Bratcher’s eye from across the room.

“He looked a little bit like Sting,” Bratcher said. After a few minutes of talking shop, they exchanged business cards.

“I had been out of a relationship for a year, and he was exiting one,” Usnik said.

In May, they met for a drink, and that summer began dating. But by late August, Usnik said he thought Bratcher might become restless so soon after another relationship, and they broke up, though with an echo of the film “An Affair to Remember.”


Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company
Harlan Bratcher and Toby Usnik married on December 9, 2012, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Bratcher (born 1956) works in New York as the president and chief executive of Armani Exchange, a sportswear line of Giorgio Armani. He is on the board of governors of Parsons the New School for Design. Usnik (born December 4, 1962) is the head of corporate communications and chief sustainability officer at Christie’s in New York. The couple met at a Valentine’s Day party in 1997.

Usnik said that he told Bratcher, “Six months from now if we’re meant to be, let’s meet on top of the Empire State Building.”

But in October, Bratcher, who was stranded at O’Hare Airport, ditched the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr scenario, partly, he said, because of what happened to Ms. Kerr’s character: “We finally realize we’re the one. I run across the road and never make it. That’s when I realized this is it.”

He sent a message to Usnik: “You are the most significant thing to happen to me.”

They moved in together three months later — well before they were supposed to meet, or not, atop the Empire State Building.

A few months ago, while they were planning Usnik’s 50th birthday, the guest list went from 50 to almost 200, and it dawned on them that the party was more like a wedding reception.

“Toby said, ‘Why don’t we get married?’ ” Bratcher recalled, “and I said, ‘Great idea.’”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/fashion/weddings/harlan-bratcher-toby-usnik-weddings.html?_r=0 (ROSALIE R. RADOMSKY)

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance