In an uncharacteristically noncontroversial move, PSEG Long Island, which has angered residents of East Hampton with the installation of a transmission line and the attendant utility poles through some residential neighborhoods, construction at a substation in Amagansett, and electricity-delivery rates that it hopes to raise substantially, applied for and was quickly granted a freshwater wetlands permit to replace a transformer and install an underground cable in the Village of East Hampton.

The village's zoning board of appeals, to which the utility had applied for the permit, adopted a negative declaration pursuant to the State Environmental Quality Review Act, finding that no significant environmental impact would result from the action. The board then granted the permit. The State Department of Environmental Conservation has also granted permission for the project.

The transformer to be replaced, which a PSEG official told the board at a prior meeting is past its useful life, is on the easterly side of Egypt Lane approximately 150 feet south of the intersection with Fithian Lane. The utility will install 520 feet of underground cable within a portion of the right of way of Fithian Lane, which will require the digging of a 222-by-2-foot trench extending 50 feet to the east and 172 feet to the west of an existing culvert, and three other drill pits for cable to the west of the trench.

The work will necessitate the disturbance of a 10-by-10-foot area, most of which is wetlands, on the westerly side of Egypt Lane. Representatives of the utility promised that the disturbed areas would be reseeded and restored to their original condition.

Jeffrey Weir, a spokesman for PSEG Long Island, said that a construction schedule would be determined in the coming weeks.

The artist Audrey Flack needs a shed at her Cottage Avenue property to store her work, she told the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday.

But the 432-square-foot building, which would be just over 18 feet high, would require multiple variances that the board seems unwilling to grant. The village code restricts accessory structures to 250 square feet and 14 feet in height. Ms. Flack would also need variances from side-yard setbacks for the shed, and a 64-square-foot exterior cellar entrance would result in a total lot coverage of 480 square feet more than is permitted.

Tom Osborne, an attorney representing Ms. Flack and her husband, H. Robert Marcus, told the board that some of the artist’s work is large, necessitating the proposed shed’s height. Ms. Flack’s sculptures include monumental female figures and she counts many public projects among her body of work. Her house on Cottage Avenue does not have a full basement and the lot’s layout provides scant options for an accessory structure’s placement, Mr. Osborne said.

The shed was initially proposed to be even larger, he said. Should she receive the variance relief, he added, an existing shed in which pool furniture is stored would be removed, eliminating 80 square feet of coverage.

Complicating matters, however, Ms. Flack would like the shed to be heated — owing to the materials used in her art, Mr. Osborne said — and to include a sink. Such requests tend to raise board members’ fears that an accessory structure will be used as living space.

A sink would require a septic system, said Linda Riley, the village’s attorney. “Where are you going to put that?” she asked. Those specifications have not been completed, Mr. Osborne said.

“It’s asking a lot,” said Lys Marigold, the board’s vice chairwoman, including that the board approve a structure that may not necessarily be used for storage in the future. “Fifty years from now there’s still going to be a structure there,” she said. 

The proposed shed, said Frank Newbold, the chairman, would be almost two stories tall. “If I was neighbor, I’d be concerned about it,” he said.

“I think it’s too much,” John McGuirk agreed.

“I know it sounds like an awful lot,” Ms. Flack answered, but, she said, “If you came over, you’d see that there is no other place.” Compared to neighboring properties, hers is tiny, she said. She told the board that she has been in East Hampton since the 1950s, and that her house had previously belonged to the artist Jimmy Ernst.

“As far as impact,” she said, “nobody’s going to really see it. . . . It sounds like I’m asking so much. I’m just asking for a place to store my work.” The hearing was left open and will be revisited at the board’s next meeting, on Friday, Feb. 27.

The continuation of a hearing on Andy and Jane Graiser’s house at 42 Mill Hill Lane, a new construction that followed demolition of an existing house, was adjourned to the board’s Friday, Feb. 27, meeting, but a neighboring homeowner nonetheless registered objections — hers and those of other neighbors — to both the size of the house and the proposed location of a garage.

At the board’s Jan. 9 meeting, the applicants’ request to add an eyebrow window to the roof, which the Building Department had previously denied, was debated anew. At that meeting, and again on Friday, Mary Bush of 50 Mill Hill Lane lamented what in her view was the poor planning that allowed a house of its size. On her street, “where some homes are already in close proximity, and cherished houses almost 100 years old will stand next to new construction, it is vitally important to consider visual impact from the road and neighbors,” she said. The village’s zoning code allows builders a blank palette within certain parameters, she said, and also ensures that neighbors’ privacy is respected. “Unfortunately, we do not see that the relief sought from the code in this application does either,” she said.

The board also announced four determinations. Howard D. Schultz, the chief executive officer of the Starbucks chain, and his wife, Sheri Kersch-Schultz, were granted a coastal erosion hazard permit and variance relief to allow the construction of 400 square feet of wood decking and stone pavers in place of a stone patio, as well as the erection of a sculpture at 14 Gracie Lane. The additions will be landward of the coastal erosion hazard area line, and the board found that there will be minimal or no disturbance to the dune or other natural features.

Diane Flynn of 88 Buell Lane was granted variances to allow the construction of first and second-story additions to her house and improvements to an existing garage. The improvements add to the gross floor area and lot coverage, both of which are already more than the maximum permitted under code.

William Sheehan and Melissa Egbert of 10 Egypt Lane were given variances from side and rear-yard setbacks to allow a swimming pool and adjacent patio to be reconstructed. Their lot coverage also exceeds the maximum permitted. Evan Kulman of 35 Conklin Terrace was also granted variances to permit lot coverage in excess of the maximum permitted, and relief from setback requirements to allow the continued existence of a garage and air-conditioning units.

A newspaper report last week that PSEG Long Island is to seek proposals for new electric power-generation facilities in Montauk unleashed more criticism this week of the utility company, which angered East Hampton residents last year when it installed high-voltage electric lines through residential areas from East Hampton Village to Amagansett. Diesel-powered generating substations in Montauk were decommissioned several years ago.

However, Jeffrey Weir, a PSEG Long Island spokesman, said yesterday that although PSEG is contemplating issuing a request for proposals on the South Fork, the exact location of new plants had not been determined and may not be specified in the call for proposals, which is likely to go out soon.

At a meeting last year at East Hampton Town Hall attended by dozens of unhappy residents, David Daly, PSEG’s president and chief operating officer, had described a “very serious reliability problem” in power delivery in eastern East Hampton Town. The new transmission lines were needed, he said, to ensure reliable power to 8,000 PSEG Long Island customers here, including in Montauk.

The outcry against the new lines and larger utility poles resulted, after a review of PSEG’s procedures by Audrey Zibelman, the head of the New York State Department of Public Service, in a plan for the department to work with PSEG to ensure that affected communities in the future “fully understand the magnitude” of projects, are aware of alternatives, and “have a meaningful opportunity to provide input.”

But in a press release this week, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who has been sharply critical of PSEG, expressed disappointment that local officials had not been informed about the plans that were reported to involve Montauk.

Along with Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and several others, Mr. Thiele had criticized PSEG’s “Utility 2.0” long-range plan, unveiled last year, for a lack of specifics regarding long-range plans for the South Fork, which PSEG has called “the highest load growth region on Long Island.” 

“PSEG-LI, unencumbered by any real oversight, again has decided to undertake a major initiative on the East End without any discussion or consultation with the public or local elected officials,” Mr. Thiele said in the release. “This same arrogant approach led to the unnecessary public controversy with transmission lines in East Hampton Town. After that debacle, we had been promised increased public involvement, but PSEG-LI has again failed to deliver.”

“First, the existing ‘peaker’ plants in Montauk were closed. Then, LIPA clumsily moved forward with a transmission line in East Hampton because more power was needed. Then PSEG-LI canceled a renewable wind project off of Block Island because the power was unnecessary,” Mr. Thiele wrote. “Now we need more power sources in the South Fork because there is not enough power.”

Mr. Weir said yesterday that there would be discussion with local officials should additional power generating sites be proposed for East Hampton Town. “We are going to open that dialogue up,” he said.

In its Utility 2.0 plan, PSEG estimated that additional electrical transmission reinforcements would be needed here, with $97 million in “conventional infrastructure” improvements required by 2017, and another $197 million needed through 2022.

The estimated investment would cover “primarily new underground transmission cables and substation work,” according to the plan. Solar and other alternative power generation could help provide the needed power here, the plan says.

But at a hearing on the long-range plan, Mr. Thiele noted that figures reflecting the company’s total investment were listed as “to be determined.”

East Hampton Town recently set a goal of meeting all of its own energy needs with renewable energy by 2020, and meeting all the town’s energy needs that way by 2030. The town had approved several possible solar plants on town properties, which could have been created through a LIPA program, but the power authority has put that initiative on hold.

While expressing support for the utility’s stated goal of attaining future energy sustainability, Mr. Cantwell and East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. wrote in a letter to PSEG that “we do have a number of questions. . . . The discussion must be public and transparent,” they said.

“There was no public participation in that environmental review process,” Mr. Cantwell said at the Utility 2.0 hearing on the high-voltage line installation, “and we can’t let that happen again.”  The blueprint for future utility projects, he said, should include “local input in any capital improvement that might be planned.”

The high-voltage lines that have been installed are not yet in use because of an ongoing court case over a stop-work order issued by the town for work at an Old Stone Highway, Amagansett, substation. The town claims the utility needed permits for the work while PSEG challenges that assertion.

Town supervisors and village mayors from across the East End are proposing a regional initiative to address the increased pollution of surface and groundwater by the nitrogen released from cesspools and septic systems in the form of a $100 million state fund that could provide rebates to homeowners for the installation of advanced-technology wastewater systems.

In a letter to state legislators, the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association laid out the proposal, which could provide rebates of up to $5,000 per residence and/or no-interest loans to help property owners cover the cost of installing enhanced septic treatment systems that better reduce nitrogen.

Water quality and wastewater disposal issues have risen to the fore in East End localities of late. East Hampton Town is developing a comprehensive wastewater management plan with the help of a consultant. In Southampton, Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and her staff worked to catalyze a partnership between the town, Stony Brook University, the county, and the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to develop a technology hub at Stony Brook Southampton focused on developing better septic treatment technology, and studies are being undertaken to pinpoint nitrogen pollution sources and develop strategies to address them.

In a pilot program, the county has been testing numerous next-generation alternative technology systems, and is expected in the coming months to add some of them to the Health Department’s list of systems approved for use in Suffolk, according to Kevin McDonald of the Nature Conservancy, who participated in discussions leading to the rebate proposal.

The advanced wastewater systems will remove far more nitrogen from wastewater than conventional septic systems and cesspools, but their price tags are $15,000 and more — “not an expense most homeowners can be expected to bear without assistance,” the supervisors and mayors’ proposal says.

The need to reduce nitrogen pollution has been addressed in both the county’s comprehensive water resources management plan and the governor’s coastal resilience and water quality task force report, the letter points out.

The proposal says that a state report has called Long Island’s nitrogen problem a “near crisis” that has resulted in repeated toxic algal blooms over the last decade.

In the short term, the local officials requested a total of $5 million in the 2015-16 state budget for the creation of a Long Island nitrogen management and mitigation plan, and for the development of “science-based nitrogen standards.”

The goals of the $100 million rebate program would stem from those standards and benchmarks. The program could be funded, Mr. McDonald suggested, using some of New York State’s share of a court-ordered $125 billion “national mortgage settlement” — money to be paid by banks found to have been acting improperly regarding mortgage servicing and foreclosures.

Individual towns would oversee their own programs, through which rebates would be offered to homeowners as an incentive to install nitrogen-reducing septic systems, which the proposal calls “the most significant action that can be taken to reverse alarming and increasing impairments to groundwater, ponds, bays, tidal wetlands, finfish habitats, and shellfish beds.”

The program could mirror successful programs that provided rebates for the replacement of underground fuel tanks that posed an environmental hazard.

The East End officials’ group says that an initial allotment of $100 million for the program would allow for upgrades to almost a quarter of the existing cesspools and septic systems. Each town would specify its own priority areas and eligibility requirements. 

With few sewer systems, the East End has approximately 81,000 separate, onsite wastewater systems in the ground, the officials wrote, “leaching untreated nitrogen directly into groundwater, which then transports the nitrogen into surface waters.”

“When new technology exists that will treat the nitrogen in our wastewater — a relatively simple solution to a worsening problem that could spell the ruin of our local economies and quality of life — investment in a rebate program is smart policy,” the supervisors and mayors wrote. “The longer we wait, the more expensive remediation will prove to be, if it can be accomplished at all.”

As state, local, and school officials look to next year’s budgets, Adam Fine, the principal of East Hampton High School, is hopeful that South Fork students will have continued access to an array of mental health services first unveiled in September.

Following an unprecedented pooling of resources, students have had access to a full-time social worker and an as-needed child and adolescent psychiatrist. All told, the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative, a task force made up of state and local legislators, school administrators, and community members working to help increase access to mental health services, secured more than $250,000 to fund the first phase of the proposal.

On Feb. 6, during a meeting at South­ampton Hospital, Mr. Fine and Ralph Naglieri, the school psychologist, updated officials concerning the first phase of implementation.

“We couldn’t be happier,” said Mr. Fine. “It’s working.”

From September until now, Mr. Nag­lieri said, around 45 high school students have received referrals to meet with the full-time social worker, who is employed by the Family Service League, which operates a clinic in East Hampton. He said that 22 referrals resulted in a crisis situation in which a child was demonstrating thoughts of suicide and was consequently given a psychiatric evaluation.

Of the 22 students, Mr. Naglieri said that 9 high school students required short-term hospitalizations. A majority of the 22 referrals were high school students, but a small number were students from the John M. Marshall Elementary School and East Hampton Middle School.

Last year, by comparison, 15 students at East Hampton High School were hospitalized.

Across South Fork school districts, mental health issues have taken on increasing urgency, particularly since David Hernandez, an East Hampton junior, committed suicide in 2012. Last fall, a recent high school graduate became the fifth young person on the South Fork to take his or her own life since 2009.

Looking ahead to next year, the Town of East Hampton has already pledged $25,000, according to Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Town supervisor. Mr. Fine will soon approach the East Hampton School Board with hopes of securing $10,000. Last year, the board approved $5,000.

“There’s a really strong need for better mental health services throughout the town, but especially for the school-age population,” said Mr. Cantwell. “When you understand the issues that they face with mental health and students, it’s critical that these services be available on the East End.”

Mr. Naglieri attributes the high numbers of referrals to issues of distance and geography, with local schools serving as proxies for psychiatric care centers. In future years, he hopes that some of the funding might look at prevention — particularly what’s causing an increasing number of students to suffer from depression and talk about self-injury.

“The numbers might be up, but people are realizing that the school has supports and we’re making people more aware that we can get them help,” said Mr. Fine. “And now we have more resources to help kids.”

The second phase of the proposal would ensure the hiring of additional social workers and community health workers. It also proposes a mobile unit that could travel to areas of immediate need. The third and final phase would bring Stony Brook psychiatrists to Southampton Hospital as part of an expanded residency program.

From politicians to hospital administrators to mental health workers, Mr. Fine is humbled by the level of dedication devoted to tackling an issue often relegated to the sidelines.

“This is a model for other regions,” said Mr. Fine. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“They’ve heard our message loud and clear,” said Mr. Naglieri.

As the record-setting blizzard got under way late last month, Kristin Marchese of Springs was a day into labor with her first child.

The baby was five days past his due date, and as she and her husband, Aaron Marchese, planned for a natural home birth, they did their best to block out news of the blizzard heading for the South Fork.

After 30 hours, though, Ms. Marchese’s contractions were three minutes apart and not progressing further. The snow was falling fast, and with a forecast of nearly two more feet to follow, her midwife recommended that she head to the hospital. While she had pictured a “peaceful, beautiful” delivery at home, “after the 30 hours, I was exhausted and somewhat scared at that point and I was willing. If I waited any longer and there was an emergency it wouldn’t have been safe” to get to the hospital, she said.

Even so, they could not make the drive alone, so they called the Springs Fire Department to their Cedar Ridge Drive house at 8:55 p.m. on Jan. 26.

The ambulance arrived nine minutes later with Karen Haab, an advanced emergency medical technician, Kay Dedona, and Ana Nunez, both E.M.T.s, Carlson Jacobs, as a helper, and Chris Harmon behind the wheel.

“We just couldn’t believe how quick they were to respond,” Ms. Marchese said. “There were guys here who hand-shoveled our driveway to get the ambulance in there,” she recalled. Chief David King, Ryan Balnis, Tim Taylor, Pete Grimes, and Oscar Cascante, along with two East Hampton Town police officers helped get the expectant mother in the ambulance.

The rig began the 16-mile trek to Southampton Hospital at 9:20 p.m. “I was definitely in distress,” Ms. Marchese said. “They did their best to get us there as fast as possible while being safe.” The ambulance arrived just after 10 p.m.

As it turns out, the baby was in the transverse position, and his delivery required a Caesarean. Cortland John Marchese was delivered on Jan. 26 at 11:27 p.m., about an hour and a half after his mother got to the hospital. At 8 pounds, 6 ounces, he is healthy and happy, and after a very dramatic entrance, he has turned out to be an easy infant, his mother said.

“I guess he just needed to wait for something exciting,” Ms. Marchese said. She and her husband had high praise for the volunteer crew that helped them. “They facilitated getting our baby boy here safely. We really feel grateful.”

The Town of East Hampton will participate in NY Prize, the state’s $40 million competition to design small-scale “green” power-generating stations known as microgrids. Microgrid systems, which can meet a community’s energy demand through solar, wind, or hydroelectricity generation, are able to separate from the larger electric grid during extreme weather and provide power to the grid when needed.

John Botos, an environmental technician with the town’s Natural Resources Department and a member of its energy sustainability advisory committee, said that the competition, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced last week, is one avenue toward the town’s goal of meeting 100 percent of communitywide electricity needs with renewable energy sources by 2020 and the equivalent of 100 percent of economywide energy needs, such as electricity, heating, and transportation, with renewables by 2030.

The competition is accepting proposals. Not only governments but community organizations, nonprofit entities, and for-profit companies are eligible to participate. Proposed projects must be integrated into utility networks and serve at least one “critical infrastructure” installation, such as a hospital, police station, fire station, or water-treatment facility.

The town board and energy sustainability committee, Mr. Botos said, will evaluate “different opportunities as to how we can take advantage of the prize competition.” Should Montauk become separated from the rest of Long Island in extreme weather, for example, the hamlet could maintain an energy supply through a microgrid situated there, he said. The Town Hall complex and the Emergency Services Building in East Hampton Village are potential sites for a secondary microgrid. The town may also explore a partnership with the Town of Southampton to leverage a greater benefit from the microgrid competition, Mr. Botos said.

The competition’s launch coincides with renewed criticism of PSEG Long Island, which operates the Long Island Power Authority’s electricity grid, by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. The utility, Mr. Thiele said in a statement issued on Tuesday, announced a plan to request new power sources in Montauk without informing town officials or residents. That move followed the closure of existing peaker plants, which run during high demand, in Montauk several years ago, the construction of a much-criticized transmission line through residential neighborhoods in East Hampton, and LIPA’s rejection, in December, of an offshore wind farm.

“It would be naive to say decisions PSEG Long Island and LIPA make don’t impact us,” Mr. Botos said, “but the town is moving forward in trying to meet our targets. . . . Rather than waiting for PSEG Long Island to act in what would be the best interest of the community, the town and the energy sustainability committee are working closely with the Natural Resources Department to reach our goals through a variety of initiatives.”

Another such initiative, he said, is a Solarize South Fork campaign in which commercial and residential building owners in the Towns of East Hampton and Southampton and the Villages of East Hampton, Southampton, and Sag Harbor would collectively purchase solar installations to reduce costs. East Hampton’s Natural Resources Department, with Southampton’s Department of Municipal Works, will lead that effort, which the East Hampton Town Board has approved, Mr. Botos said.

“We don’t want more peaker plants,” he said. “We understand that we need some sort of fossil-fuel source as a backup, but there are other ways of doing things. This will be interesting to see how we work together to get this to happen,” he said of the town’s clean-energy initiatives, “keeping in mind what our community wants and what’s feasible and affordable.”

A Montauk resident and well-known restaurateur pleaded guilty in Federal Court in Brooklyn Wednesday to charges stemming from an Internal Revenue Service investigation into two Swiss bank accounts he had concealed from the agency.

Georges Briguet, 77, a Swiss native and naturalized United States citizen, who owns Le Perigord in New York, deliberately concealed the existence of the two accounts, one with United Bank Suisse, and the other with Clariden Leu Ltd., a subsidiary of Credit Suisse AG, according to U.S. Department of Justice. According to a press release from the department, from 2001 to 2010, Mr. Briguet failed to report the accounts, which he opened with a deposit of 7 million Swiss francs in 1992. He also failed to pay taxes on the funds, the release said.

In addition, when the I.R.S. conducted a civil audit, he specifically denied having any foreign holdings or income, a claim he repeated to another agent during a criminal investigation.

Mr. Briguet has agreed to pay $169,935 in restitution to the agency. He faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Opened in 1964 on East 52nd Street, Le Perigord has adhered to strict French dining and service, with waiters in jackets and captains in tuxedos. Regulars, William Grimes of The New York Times wrote in a 2000 review of the restaurant, "swaddle themselves in a quietly civilized atmosphere, a million miles from the tumult of the city outside."

The easy part of any wedding, as far as I’m concerned, is picking out the cake. When I was getting married, in the 1980s, a friend recommended I visit a now-long-vanished Manhattan institution called the New York Exchange for Women’s Work. It was founded some 135 years ago by a pair of socialites as a way for Civil War widows to earn a modest living by selling handicrafts and baked goods. At the time of my engagement, the baked goods from that genteel institution were made by two maiden ladies from New Jersey, nearly blind but brilliant at wedding cakes. You had to book months in advance, and they only made one kind: classic white, with white icing around and between the layers, and beautiful edible flowers cascading down. Perfect and perfectly delicious. 

Things have changed since then; we are now living in the era of “Cake Boss,” and the choices are dizzying. Still, it is a truth universally acknowledged that you can have almost as much fun auditioning cakes as you had auditioning husbands. Go around to various bakers and taste their cupcakes: Try the icings, dip into the fillings, sample the edible flowers.

So now you have the partner, and you have the cake — and you are ready for the main event, which is, of course, the dress.

That is where things can get complicated.

I got married late-ish in life, at 36. So, realistically, I was not looking to be a Disney princess. No sparkly tulle confection, no train, no bustle, no tiara, no bows, no ruffles for me. As young girls we dream of that princess thing, but did I really want all that Lady Di busy-ness? Nope. 

As a somewhat vintage bride, I decided to shop for something vintage. It suited me: In general, my wardrobe is a little bit vintage and a lot “Annie Hall.” So I invited my soon-to-be stepdaughter, then 16, to come along for a fun vintage-shopping expedition.

Brides who like the experience of a zillion choices and a lot of pampering — who can see themselves, in the manner of “Say Yes to the Dress,” playing dress-up for an audience of opinionated mothers, sisters, and best friends — will probably feel most comfortable at a dedicated bridal store, but I was delighted at the prospect of exploring all the vintage-clothing emporiums that dotted the city in the early 1980s. 

I made a list. I planned the route. Armed with a little blue-and-white-covered notebook of wedding ideas and inspirations, clippings, photos, random thoughts, addresses, and phone numbers — the early 1980s version of a smart phone — we set out. We went to the most expensive shop first. A wedding is many women’s (and men’s) only chance for sartorial extravagance, so why not?

The store in question was on the Upper East Side, a tiny jewel box of wonders. The thing about vintage is that you never know what will be unearthed. And everything, of course, is one-of-a-kind. Even if you find that just-right dress, it might be totally wrong in fit. We dove right in and started eliminating. Slinky? No. Super-glamourous? No, it was to be an afternoon wedding. Big skirts with crinolines? Just not my style.

We were weeding things out — the word they use now is “curating” —enthusiastically, tossing aside anything the wrong shape, wrong length, wrong color . .  . yes, no, no, no, maybe, no . . . when there it was. Who could have imagined that I would love the peach cotton flapper dress with white beading all over it? 

“Great Gatsby!” I thought, “that's my dress.”

It looked good on me. It fit. I would get pale stockings and cream-colored vintage looking shoes with Louis heels and a pointy toe — Norma Kamali had them, I knew. I’d wear a ring of daisies and bachelor buttons in my hair, flapper-style.

Our grand search was over in one hour. 

When my stepdaughter and I got home, I jumped on the phone to my maid of honor. It was she who had set up the blind date that had lead me to this moment.

“I have the dress,” I announced. “Now you need to go get something.”

But what could she wear that would look good next to me, with my new/old peach flapper dress and my daisies in my hair? 

We decided to take a field trip. 

Since, really, only another vintage dress would look appropriate, we drove out to Bucks County, Pa., where I knew of another vintage-clothing shop with a large inventory. With high hopes, we crossed the Hudson, bringing along my peach beauty, the pale stockings, and the Norma Kamali dream shoes.

My pal tried on everything that might have been worn by a flapper. The shop owner brought out every possible piece that might go with the peach beauty. Together, my friend and the owner even wandered into the white-dress section, crossing the boundary that usually prohibits the supporting players in the wedding party from wearing white.

While they were deep into their search, I roamed around just randomly shopping. I tried on a long velvet hobble skirt (how did they walk in those things?) and scads of hats: fascinators, hats with feathers, and a few 1940s dinner dresses  that came with amusing little cocktail hats. I was having fun, but my friend? Not so much. She had just about given up in despair.

And something completely unexpected happened.

Taking one final ramble through the racks at my maid of honor’s side, I found, hiding in plain sight . . .  another wedding dress!

This one wasn’t flapper, it was Gibson Girl. 

Who would have guessed?

Well, I guess I could have guessed.

My favorite painting in the whole world is John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes” (1897) — Mrs. Phelps Stokes, posing jauntily with a straw boater hat in her hand seems to me to be another, earlier Annie Hall — and for me, the spirit of the painting glowed on that hanger.

Forget the peach beauty. This was my wedding dress. I knew it the moment I put it one with the pale stockings and the Kamali shoes.

I bought the dress. 

I got married in the dress. 

I wore a boater with a navy and white polkadot bow. Instead of bachelor buttons in my hair, bachelor buttons were worn in my husband's lapel and carried in my bridal bouquet (where they went perfectly with the daisies I had always wanted). I walked down the aisle of the Chantry of Grace Church in Greenwich Village on the arm of my father, who had bachelor buttons in his lapel, too. It was a lovely day for a wedding. May 15, 1982. 

We held the reception in the SoHo loft of very dear artist friends. The white cake from the New York Exchange for Women's Work was set on nine square feet of sod grass, fresh from the garden center, and it looked fabulous.

My maid of honor did finally get a dress, of course — but, as we didn't want to risk another vintage-buying trip, we had a friend custom-make it.

And that perfect peach number? I wore it to two other weddings. 

I am still married, and I still have both dresses. U

The second phase of the East Hampton Village government's effort to reduce the deer population through sterilization of does has been postponed. Village officials will reevaluate the program, in which it claimed that 114 does were sterilized over 12 nights last month, after the summer.

Rebecca Molinaro, the village administrator, cited weather conditions as the reason for abandoning the second phase, which was to be conducted this month by White Buffalo, a nonprofit organization based in Connecticut. Nonetheless, the village, she wrote in an email, "has committed to a multiyear sterilization program."

The village board voted on Friday to amend its budget to increase revenue and appropriations toward the sterilization effort. The vote came after the Village Preservation Society of East Hampton, which had pledged $100,000 to the program, made the donation. The donation supplemented the $30,000 appropriated by the village board for the sterilization effort.

Kathleen Cunningham, executive director of the Village Preservation Society, acknowledged weather-related challenges to implementation of the program. "The data is not in yet," she said on Friday, prior to the village's announcement. "Generally speaking, it's not in the first year of the program that you notice the change. We know we sterilized so many deer, consequently there won't be as many next year."

While animal rights activists felt the sterilization program more humane than an organized cull, some were nonetheless critical of a procedure they called cruel and ineffective. Several tagged does were found dead, at least one with a gunshot wound.

"I think they made the right decision not to continue with the program in this weather," said Dr. James Meyer, a large-animal veterinarian in East Hampton. Combined with this winter's extreme cold, the stress of capture could result in kidney and heart damage, he said. "My concern would be operating on animals and releasing them at night, in very cold, extreme conditions, and letting them fend for themselves without a follow-up," he said.