“Can anybody hear anything?” asked opera singer Alyson Cambridge, looking something far beyond statuesque in a white lace trumpet gown, as she and her almost husband, Timothy Eloe, try to fix Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s malfunctioning microphone.
“Okay, so we’ll start over,” said Ginsburg, who with frilly cuffs spilling out of her judge’s robe and thick black sunglasses looked as rock star as Prince. And the show goes on.
It seemed appropriate for a relationship that started with the stage. In his personal vows, Eloe, a Chicago businessman, said he first saw Cambridge, an area native who’s performed multiple times with the Washington National Opera, on a 20-foot billboard for the musical “Show Boat” more than three years ago. Once the show’s Chicago run, which Eloe joked he’d seen more times than anyone else in the entire city, was over, Eloe told Cambridge he knew “we were an us.”
Cambridge, dabbing her eyes with a tissue handed to her by her maid of honor — Eloe’s 11-year-old daughter Christina — said she’d been surprised that a clean-cut former college football player turned out to be the perfect match for her “slightly over the top personality.”
After the rings — carefully guarded by Eloe’s two young sons, Daniel, 10, and William, 7 — Ginsburg wished the couple a lifetime of happiness “serving each other and humankind in peace and hope.”
So just how does one get a Supreme Court Justice to preside over one’s wedding? Well, first you ask.
At a cast party for Washington National Opera’s production of La Boheme, in which Cambridge starred as Musetta, the couple asked Ginsburg, an opera aficionado, if she’d officiate. “I immediately said yes,” said Ginsburg who noted that Cambridge once considered a law career, “but to the good fortune of her audience,” decided to pursue music instead. Another must to getting Ginsburg on your program is having the justice as a fan. “Radiant,” added Ginsburg of Cambridge, “is a good way to describe her.”