Kay Lipper and Andy Anderson

ANDY ANDERSON takes long daily walks around Summit, N.J., greeting those he meets so heartily that some people call him the city’s unofficial mayor.
“He’s very gregarious and well liked,” said Gil Owren, a lawyer who has known Mr. Anderson for 30 years. His popularity also stems from his avid support of the town’s sports teams, including those of his alma mater, Summit High School. Mr. Anderson was in the special education program there.
“Andy remembers facts and figures, and things that happened in games that even the players don’t,” said his friend John Dougherty, a Summit police sergeant.
Kay Lipper, who graduated from nearby Westfield High School, and completed the Threshold Program, a curriculum for adults with learning disabilities, is described by her stepmother, Ruth Lipper, as “determined to see the world in an optimistic, hopeful point of view.”
At a nursing home where Kay Lipper was a recreation assistant, Ruth Lipper said, “She noticed that many people didn’t get visitors.” So, her stepmother said, she’d stop by with a plant or a box of candy, or a personalized birthday card she’d made on her computer.
Mr. Anderson, 46, and Kay Lipper, 41, met in passing a few years ago at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit. The church was one of Mr. Anderson’s regular stops after he got off work as a maintenance staff member at two Pathmark supermarkets. Ms. Lipper is a full-time volunteer secretary at the church.
“He looked like a nice, friendly guy,” Kay Lipper recalled, “but I’m kind of a shy person.”
In spring 2004, Jean Kelley, Central Presbyterian’s business administrator, decided a little push was in order. She gave Ms. Lipper her ticket to the annual party for Our House, an organization that supports independent living for adults with developmental disabilities. She knew that Mr. Anderson, who lived in an Our House apartment, would be there.
Ms. Lipper went to the party. Mr. Anderson was dancing with a partner when, in mid-step, he noticed Ms. Lipper. He quickly abandoned his partner and began dancing with a group that Ms. Lipper was with.
“I liked her a lot,” Mr. Anderson explained.
Ms. Lipper said she was flattered by the attention, but also surprised.
Chaperoned on their first date by Ms. Kelley, the couple went to the Colorado Cafe, a Western-theme restaurant and dance bar in Watchung, N.J. There, Mr. Anderson came straight to the point, Ms. Lipper said.
“He said, ‘Do you want to get married?’ ” she recalled. “I said, ‘No, let’s give it a while.’ He said, ‘O.K., I’ll wait a month,’ and I said, ‘No, try a year.’ ”
They dated for over a year, going to movies, restaurants or plays about once a week.
“Since neither of them drives,” Ms. Kelley said, “they’d take the train to the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn or other places they could reach by mass transit or on foot.”
Ms. Lipper said she came to love Mr. Anderson’s “big heart for people.”
She said: “Andy is the type of person that if a lady needs help reaching something on a shelf, he won’t think twice, he’ll just reach over and help.”
The church’s staff advised Mr. Anderson on etiquette — pulling out the woman’s chair, opening a door for her. And in October 2005, Ms. Kelley spent a week coaching Mr. Anderson for a very special date.
“Normally when we go out, I’m the one who plans everything,” Ms. Lipper said. “But he wouldn’t tell me what we were doing.”
They met at La Pastaria, a restaurant in Summit. “He walks in and I could tell he had some things behind his back,” she said. “And he was kind of nervous.”
After dinner he presented her with three roses — red, white and yellow — because “roses are a signal of love from me to her,” he said. Each came with a card attached, and when she opened the last card, he was holding a ring and “asked the question,” she recalled.
“After I finished crying, I screamed, ‘Yes!’ ” she said. “Then I took out my cellphone and called everybody. But because Andy knows everybody, everyone knew before I did, which is no surprise.”
The bride’s father, A. Michael Lipper, escorted her down the aisle of Central Presbyterian on Sept. 1, when she and Mr. Anderson were married by the Rev. Rebecca Laird before 135 invited guests; another 300 responded to an open invitation.
Ruth Lipper says the bride and bridegroom are right for each other because, “they are both so determined to be happy.”
“Most people only function up to a certain percentage of their capacity,” she said. “They don’t put the effort that Olympic athletes and classically trained opera singers do to reach their maximum capacity. But Kay and Andy put everything into everything they do.”