Posted on: Saturday, December 8, 2001

Sept. 11 taught couple that 'life is precious'

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Staff Writer

Virginia Ruggiero wed her longtime sweetheart Martin Dennehy, a New York police officer, at the Radisson Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel yesterday. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

In front of an orchid garden and to the tune of an 'ukulele serenade, a New York hero and his longtime sweetheart found a happy ending.

Martin Dennehy, an eight-year veteran of the New York Police Department's 6th Precinct, and Virginia, a medical assistant, were married yesterday at the Radisson Waikiki Prince Kuhio, placing an exclamation point on their first week of rest since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The couple are part of a group of 600 New Yorkers, many of them widows and relatives of rescue workers lost in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, who arrived in Honolulu last weekend for a free week of rest and recreation.

Dennehy, a narcotics officer who was one of the first to respond to the World Trade Center, spent two hours evacuating people from the North Tower and was on the plaza level when it collapsed. Several of his fellow officers were lost.

He said the trauma prompted him and Ruggiero, who have long talked about getting married, to the realization of how precious life is. "Don't stop. Don't wait around. Live life and do what you've got to do," Dennehy said. "We always talk about getting married. Every time we go out of town our family expects us to come back married."

This time they will. Dennehy, 32, wore his police dress uniform and Ruggiero, 31, wore an aloha print dress with flowers in her hair. But the signs of home were there. The Rev. Allan Fisher of Windward Unity Church in Kailua, after he sang the Hawaiian wedding song, pronounced the couple "Mr. and Mrs. Martin Dennehy of Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk."

The marriage will be a surprise to their families, but not a big one. Ruggiero's family suspected such plans in the works and made sure to send something old, new, borrowed and blue along with her just in case. "They told me, 'You're going to paradise. Get married,' " she said. "This is perfect. I feel like a princess."

Witnesses and guests included other members of the New York Police Department whom the couple met this week — and dozens of hotel guests and passers-by who stopped to smile, clap and cheer when the Dennehys kissed.

The couple drank their champagne in hibiscus-painted flutes and listened to the sounds of "New York, New York" playing on the piano.

And before they left to call their parents, the Dennehys received their first wedding gift, from the state of Hawai'i: a pair of return tickets to the Islands.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.