Peter Sherwood & David Freiberger

After meeting at a mutual friend’s birthday party and subsequently spending half a decade together, Peter Sherwood and David Freiberger were ready to get hitched. “I proposed to David at Bar Six in the Village, where we had our first date in 2007,” Sherwood, who is Next Magazine’s dining editor, recalls. For him, the devil was in the details—and all of them had to be classically gay.

“I surprised him with a ring from Andy Götz,” he says. Sherwood had held onto a magazine clipping of the band he’d wanted to get Freiberger for several years waiting for the right moment. “I finally scheduled an appointment and went to the little shop by the 59th Street Bridge—there was only one of the rings left and it was the right size for David! It’s really beautiful and so unique; sterling silver with reeds from Thailand encased in the band.”

Sherwood, who says he’s been obsessed with Breakfast at Tiffany’s ever since he read the novella and saw the film as a high school student, knew he had to have a wedding ring from the famous midtown jeweler and designer. “The band is sterling silver and titanium.”

In order to keep the ceremony as classic as the wedding bands, the pair decided to invite a modest number of close friends and family and have the ceremony in Chelsea. “We invited 56 people, 48 confirmed—and actually showed up!” Sherwood laughs. “That was a good thing too because on more than a few nights, David would find me awake at 3am carefully orchestrating the seating arrangements, handwriting the place cards, perfuming the envelopes they were put in and sealing them with stamped red wax.”

Sherwood’s parents—who are 79 and 87 and hadn’t been to New York in several years—made it to the city for the ceremony and reception in the Dulcinea room at El Quijote next to the Chelsea Hotel. “We surprised our guests by actually getting married in the Dulcinea room by an old pal who is an officiant. We hadn’t told anybody—they all thought we were married the day before at City Hall. When the proceedings were announced, the gasps were audible!”

They followed the ceremony with a top shelf cocktail hour and then a sit down dinner. “My Mom actually turned 79 the day of the wedding, so at one point during the evening, after David and I took our vows, we presented her with a big huge cupcake from Cupcake Café and everybody sang a rousing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Needless to say, she was more than delighted.”

And what’s a gay wedding without a brunch for close pals the morning after? “After hosting a post-wedding Champagne brunch at our home for about 20 people the next day, we went on our honeymoon, high-tailing it to Islamorada in the Florida Keys and then ensconced ourselves in an absolutely gorgeous bungalow off of the pool at the Delano hotel in Miami.”