Dave and Lindsay Chudowsky got engaged in February 2008 knowing their choice of wedding dates would be limited by the groom’s obligations as a Channel 3 weekend sports anchor. Fall was immediately eliminated by Northeast Ohio’s hectic football scene. Spring and summer were nixed by the Cleveland Indians schedule and a probable NBA championship run by the Cleveland Cavaliers. So the couple gambled on Cleveland’s highly unpredictable late-winter weather by settling on March 14, 2009 — and won big time.
“We got lucky,” says Lindsay, a 32-year-old sales manager for Fairway Glass in Rocky River. “It was sunny and in the 50s.”
Although the couple considered exchanging vows at Progressive Field, a location conducive to creating the fun atmosphere they desired, they eventually opted for a 2 p.m. Mass at St. Ignatius of Antioch Catholic Church in Cleveland. “It’s one of those churches you dream of getting married in,” Dave, 34, says. “The stained-glass windows are unbelievable.” Lindsay walked down the aisle in a candlelight gown with a strapless, crystal-embellished satin bodice that was fitted to the hips and flared into a fuller crystal-organza overlay from Dora’s Bridal & Formal in Fairview Park. She was preceded by five attendants, each in a strapless, champagne-colored silk dress with a sweetheart neckline and long, straight skirt.
The couple did add some unusual touches. She indulged her love of green by using lime roses as accents in her cream rose bouquet, tied with satin ribbon and secured by a jeweled broach, as well as the bouquets of dark-red Baccara roses ordered for the attendants. Her wedding band was set with alternating white and chocolate diamonds, a variation she requested to set off her diamond solitaire engagement ring. After the ceremony, the wedding party boarded a limo bus bound for Close Quarters, an Avon Lake bar known for its small size, to toast the bride and groom.
“The name sums it up. You can fit, like, 20 people in there,” Dave says.
The group then rejoined 150 guests for a 5 p.m. reception at Wagner’s Country Inn in Westlake. There they dined on a plated steak-and-chicken dinner and a cassata-style wedding cake completely covered in white-chocolate shavings by Fragapane Bakeries in Bay Village. “The shavings almost looked like rose petals,” Lindsay says. An evening of dancing to ’80s music provided by Cleveland’s Breakfast Club followed.
>The couple embarked on a weeklong honeymoon in Florida the next day. The vacation might be one of the last the Chudowskys will be taking alone for a while. In fact, the couple may be spending their first anniversary in a hospital delivery room; Lindsay is expecting their first child in March.
