Monday, September 23, 2002

Here is the wedding announcement I sent to the New York Times...I hope they publish it:

Veronica Maria Ruiz Contreras, the daughter of Rafael Ruiz and Nydia Ruiz Contreras of Brooklyn, NY were married Friday afternoon to Jeffrey Victor Sutherland, Jr., a son of Dr. Jeffrey Sutherland and Rev. Arline Conan Sutherland of Somerville, Massachusetts. Father Robert Lawsine officiated at St. Saviour's Catholic Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Ms. Ruiz Contreras, 30, will keep her name. She is a media planner at La Agencia d'Orci, a Spanish language advertising agency in Los Angeles. She graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with degrees in both Psychology and Communications. Her father, a retired New York City police officer, is now employed at Keyspan Energy and her mother works at the Brooklyn Board of Elections.
Mr. Sutherland, known as J.J., 33, is the acting Assistant Managing Editor for NPR West, National Public Radio's new West Coast production facility in Culver City, California. A radio journalist for many years, he has won numerous awards for his work, most recently NPR received a Peabody Award for its coverage of 9/11, he produced parts of that coverage. He also consults for Tom Joyner, the host of The Tom Joyner Morning Show, heard on ABC radio. His father, a former fighter pilot and Major in the U.S. Air Force, is the Chief Technology Officer of Patientkeeper, Inc. a healthcare technology firm and his mother is a Unitarian/Universalist Minister.
The two met in 1994 at WBUR, a public radio station in Boston, where Mr. Sutherland produced and directed a daily talk show, The Connection with Christopher Lydon, and Ms. Ruiz Contreras raised funds from corporationst. They didn't speak at first, Mr. Sutherland being convinced that Ms. Ruiz Contreras would never consider dating him. After his mentor at the station told him she was the smartest woman in the building, Mr. Sutherland asked her out for coffee. Ms. Ruiz Contreras calmly replied that she didn't drink coffee. That began a multi-year and multi-city courtship that took them to New York City, Washington, D.C., and most recently, Los Angeles.
They were engaged last September 21st as they waited for a shuttle bus to take Ms. Ruiz Contreras to Dulles International Airport to travel home to New York City to visit her family after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Ms. Ruiz Contreras' brother is a Port Authority Police Officer.
Mr. Sutherland had been working 18 hour days since the attacks producing NPR's overnight coverage, hosted by his uncle, Neal Conan. Exhausted, he told her he didn't have the creativity at the moment to do something dramatic, but that whatever happened in the world, he wanted her to return to New York knowing how he felt about her. After a few moments silence, and after being told an answer is traditional, she said yes.