BOSTON — At the recent wedding of Philip Bloom and Susan Dandridge, the groom wasn’t hard to find. He was the one wearing red, white and blue. On his head.
Bloom said “I do” clad in the red nose, white makeup and blue hair of his alter ego, Rami Salami, King of the Balloon Twisters.
To the civil ceremony in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, fashion designer Dandridge wore her “happy dress,” a “rainbow of tropical colors” that she found at a local shop. Her 9-year-old son, Max, was one of the ushers — all of whom were identifiable by their clown faces and balloon hats. Bridesmaids Barbara Poole and Lisa Zizzi were wearing balloon hats. The invited guests included all the local newspapers and TV stations, along with CNN.
Bloom “identifies so strongly with Rami Salami,” Dandridge said while watching her balloon-stretching beau perform at the marketplace recently. For the Balloon-Twisting King to take his “Queen,” Dandridge said, “was sort of the natural thing to do.”
“It’s crazy,” Bloom said, “but everything we’ve touched together has worked for us.”
It was Salami’s first marriage, Dandridge’s second, and it was among the most bizarre nuptials Bernard Reisberg has conducted in his 20 years as a justice of the peace. Reisberg didn’t get into the act beyond officiating in his standard black clerical robe sans makeup, funny nose or balloon headgear — just to give the ceremony some “dignity,” he said.
That was Rami Salami’s idea, Reisberg said. But it seemed like a stretch considering the other tricks the Balloon King and his Queen-to-be had up their sleeves. Shortly after exchanging “I do’s” and partaking in their first smooch as clown and wife, Bloom and Dandridge passed under a special wedding arch created by eight jugglers, all friends of the groom.
They tossed bowling pins over the newlyweds’ heads.
“We’re offbeat people,” Bloom said. “We’re just interested in making people happy.”
Between the outfits, the jugglers, the balloon hats Bloom distributed afterward — “anyone who wanted a hat got one,” he says — and the macarena contest (with prizes) following the ceremony, bride and groom made the shindig a morning and afternoon to remember.
The First Couple of Inflatables had been nearly inseparable since Dandridge first saw Rami Salami twisting balloons in Harvard Square. Her son Max asked the clown to make him a balloon hat. Salami was awestruck by the youngster’s distinctive fleecy attire and asked where it came from. Max then introduced the clown to his mother, who had designed the clothes.
In a few months they were engaged.
“There was electricity,” said Bloom, who as Salami has performed worldwide for the last four years and at the marketplace since April.
After the reception, the couple attended a Friday night beginners’ Rosh Hashanah service.
The pair honeymooned in Israel, where Bloom performed at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel as part of the city’s Jerusalem 3000 festivities. Rami Salami’s old friend Zvi Raviv, United Israel Appeal’s director of leadership training, had arranged the gig for him.
“We wanted to be married before we went to Israel,” Bloom said.
“She’s meticulous and I’m ridiculous. We’re the perfect team.”