“It was the New York moment of all New York moments,” Ms. Diamandis said.

“That’s how I roll,” Mr. Blakeman responded.

Mr. Blakeman’s parents are George Winthrop Blakeman, a former partner at Pierce, Fenner, and Smith Brokerage and now a ranked bridge player, and Abigail Ellsworth Blakeman, the former director of development at Silliman School, now retired, of Fair Harbor, Connecticut. The Groom-to-Be is the great-great-great-grandson of Oliver Ellsworth, a founding father of Connecticut and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The Bride-to-Be is the daughter of Alexa Diamandis, a citizen of both America and Greece, where she was raised on Patmos by her parents, hoteliers Yiorgos and the late Eleni Diamandis. She is the CEO of Odyssey Vacations in Montecito, a luxury travel company.

An intimate California celebration is planned with a honeymoon to follow in the summer in Greece. The Bride will be walked down the aisle by her godfather, Simon Fox, 4th Baron Plumley, a member of the House of Lords. And will the mayor make another surprise appearance? The engaged couple are not saying. But their eyes are shining.

A note from Aunt B: I have known Chase all his life, thanks to my decades-long friendship with his mother. I cover this both as a journalist and as a longtime family friend.

Chapter 15
The Visit Prep

The Mother of the Bride

“I can’t thank you enough, Ming. I didn’t know where I was going to put them,” Alexa said as she arrived with an overflowing basket of goods from Pierre Lafond market to place in the guest wing. Water, wine, beer, sunscreen, chocolates, even baseball caps curated by the prevailing purveyor of gourmet food, baked goods, and gifts in Montecito, along with a few prepared meals in case they woke up hungry because of the time difference. Ming’s house was a modern single-story oasis on the grounds of one of Montecito’s premier golf course communities, Nottingham Forest. Tucked at the end of a cul-de-sac, the home had enough elevation for a view of the Pacific from one window and the Santa Barbara mountains from another.

Ming’s late spouse, Bob Cowan, lawyer to the stars and husband number two, had made sure to include in his will that this house was hers for as long as she wanted to live in it, much to the dismay of his adult children, who were hoping to sell the place and split the proceeds. Recently, there’d been some pressure on Ming to move into a smaller home so the boys could “liquidate the asset,” as the quasi-legal email from John, the eldest son, said. Periodically, real estate agents showed up at her door to do an assessment at the request of John and James Cowan. While it wasn’t in Ming’s nature to be petty, she’d recently remodeled the kitchen, an unmistakable signal to her stepsons that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.