The wedding was a hit, but the bride struck out with her scheduling.
Still, a beaming and blushing Traci Bradbury, 29, generously flashed the score of the Yankees-Red Sox game – holding up five fingers to let the guests know where the Bombers stood – as she glided down the aisle yesterday toward her baseball fanatic fiancé, Doug Potenza, 32.
After all, a wedding vow is a wedding vow.
“Doug asked me for a hand signal to tell him the score when I walk down the aisle, and I said I’d try even though I’ll be holding my bouquet,” Bradbury said a day before her nuptials.
“He has his fantasy football league, his University of Virginia football game [where he went to college], the Yankees, and this wedding – which are the four things on his mind.”
The gracious groom conceded the timing could have been better.
“But this is a perfect day,” he gushed, after the wedding and the 8-4 Yankees win.
It wasn’t that Bradbury hadn’t plotted her big day carefully – wanting to make sure she didn’t repeat the nuptial nightmare of her cousin, who married during last year’s World Series.
The Yankees’ playoff run laid waste to that wedding plan.
“I’m getting a lot of heat here!” Bradbury groaned Friday night. “Our rehearsal dinner is at the Central Park Boathouse, and my brother called me about 10 minutes ago to ask if we could move it to ESPN Zone! I told him no.”
About 200 guests showed up for yesterday’s ceremony at the Church of St. Thomas More, on a crisp, picture-perfect fall afternoon – with plenty of guests keeping up with the score on their BlackBerries – and the uncle of the bride bringing a radio.
“Every day this week, Doug and I talked about what we have to do for the wedding, and then how far the Yankees are,” she said beforehand. “It’s such a part of our life. We purposely avoided the playoffs because we didn’t want to deal with it – and figured this weekend could be either really good or really bad. Of course, it’s really bad!”
No matter. The Bomber maniacs kept guests apprised of the score as the game progressed.
The bride walked the block-and-a-half from her East Side apartment to the church while the Yankees were up by three.
She walked down the aisle when the score was 5-2.
(The bridesmaids whispered it to everyone standing in the back.)
When the couple exited the church, the Bombers led, 7-2.
Traci’s father, Tommy Bradbury Jr., conceded: “The most important thing of course is my daughter.”
Well, for some.
Tommy Bradbury IV, who is 1, cried forlornly until his father, Tommy III, replaced the Yankees cap that was taken from him when he made it to the altar.
“Everyone has been talking about my wedding and the game all week, and it’s hysterical,” Bradbury said. “My dad said, ‘How did you manage to pick the most important week in baseball for your wedding?’ And it’s like, ‘OK, no pressure!’ But I told him, ‘You have to go to the church and walk me down the aisle. You have one of the more important roles!’ “
Yankees clinch spot in AL playoffs / Sports: Pages 37-48