Aaron Tracy

That would never come again.

When was I going to face reality?

Isn't that every married person's worst fear?

That their spouse might have been thinking that when they were proposed to?

But the guy won't give up.

He's as persistent about this as he is about everything in his life.

And the next time he asks, she acquiesces.

He's worn her down.

The poor guy isn't yet the writer he'll become.

He can't even afford a ring for Neil.

As always, Charles Marsh comes to the rescue, providing Dahl with a diamond.

Dahl and Neal decide to get married at Trinity Church at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, a towering Gothic revival built in the late 1600s.

Famous New Yorkers like Alexander Hamilton are buried right out front.

It's so hot on July 2nd, 1953, the day of the wedding, that Dahl rips the lining right out of his brand new suit when he wakes up that morning.

Can't you just picture Neil laughing at that?

Just laying in bed, summer sun streaming through the slits in the window shades, her wedding day, gazing up at this tall, handsome man she's about to marry as he towers over her, clumsily struggling with his new suit.

I'll bet she was glowing.

Maybe she's even forgotten to think about Gary Cooper.

And Dahl must have been optimistic about the future too, excited to finally have reached this new stage of his life, a new kind of adventure.

Neither one had any idea of the utter tragedy and heartbreak that would come from this marriage, or the incredible, world-beating successes that would result from it.