A Chance Discovery Saves The (Wedding) Day

By Shannon Hicks

By simply doing the right thing, a Newtown boy and his cousin recently helped create the perfect wedding day for two people they did not know.

Renee Howard and George Lazor were married on Friday, September 29. After the 5 pm ceremony, they rode to The Pleasance to take advantage of the gazebo and fountain at the public garden at 1 Main Street in Newtown for their wedding photos.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that the newlyweds realized they had misplaced $750 cash, the money that was to be used to pay their limo driver that evening. George went to reach into his tuxedo jacket pocket for the money and suddenly, he and his new wife had reason to panic. The money was nowhere to be found.

“I said ‘Look, it’s gone, there’s nothing we can do about it,’” Renee said over the phone recently. “It made us sick, though, that we had lost that much cash. We used some of our honeymoon money for pay the limo driver that night, and we just wrote it off.”

What the Lazors had no way of knowing at that time what that the money had been found, and was already in safe hands.

Back at The Pleasance, once the newlyweds finished having their photos taken, there was another group of people, local BMX bike riders and racers, also waiting to take pictures. Danny Cartisano, 10, of Newtown, and his cousin, Anthony Cartisano, 12, of Shelton, decided to play catch near the fountain at the park while Danny’s father, Marc Cartisano, was waiting to have his photo taken.

The fountain at The Pleasance is a 19th Century cast iron Fiske fountain, and the garden it calls home has for at least three years been attracting positive public attention as people discover the beautiful location and its natural peace right in the heart of Newtown. Parties and picnics have been held there, and everyone from wedding parties to promgoers have used the picturesque setting for photographs.

After only a few minutes of their game of catch, one of the boys noticed something lying on the ground near the base of the three-tier water fountain.

“We were making a game out of playing catch while making our way around the path,” Anthony explained last week. In addition to the gazebo and stone fountain, The Pleasance also has a crushed stone walkway that runs the around the park area. It was Danny who noticed the envelope, and then told his cousin what was inside it.

“He had been joshing me about other things all day, so I didn’t really believe him at first,” Anthony continued.

As soon as it was discovered the plain white, unmarked envelope had hundreds of dollars in it, the boys ran to their parents.

“We thought bees had stung them or something had bitten them, the way they were screaming and running at us,” Chris Cartisano, Danny’s father, said last week.

Minutes later, Danny and Anthony were in the front lobby of Newtown Police Station, which is adjacent to The Pleasance.

“They didn’t have any idea who it belonged to or what it was for, but they went to their parents and said ‘The police station is right there, we’re going to turn it in,’” Renee said she later learned.

Once they had discovered the money was missing, George and Renee had pulled money out of their honeymoon stash to pay the limo and continued to celebrate their big day. The reception concluded, and the newlyweds went to a hotel in Farmington for the night. Saturday morning, they returned to Newtown to meet the car that would take them to the airport to begin their honeymoon.

In a funny turn of events, George’s sister, had decided to contact the police department Saturday morning.

 “We were home, packing up some last-minute things, and our phone rang,” said Renee. “It was his sister, and she said she had some wonderful news for us. She said she had just wanted to take a chance in calling the police station, because sometimes you never know,” Renee recalled.

The police officer had been able to confirm that someone had turned in some money, but could not share details concerning the amount of money or even the container the money was in. That had to be done only by the person who was claiming the money, the police officer told George’s sister.

“This was great because we found out before we went away that the money had been recovered,” Renee said. “The car was picking us up at 2 pm so we didn’t have time to pick up the money before we left for our honeymoon, but we knew it was safe again.

“The wedding was so perfect and losing that money was the one thing that had gone wrong,” she continued. “But then we got it back and everything was again perfect.”

Renee and George Lazor met Danny and Anthony last week. The four were able to finally come face-to-face on October 18 at Dunkin’ Donuts in Newtown so that the Lazors could thank the boys for their generous deed. The newlyweds also gave each boy a reward.

“They seemed sincerely happy for us,” Renee said last week. “They didn’t even look at the money, they just kept smiling. They just seem like good kids. It was so great to meet them. It’s so good to know that in this day and age, there are kids out there who know what’s right and wrong.”

“It’s nice to see that you’ve succeeded in raising your kids well,” Jean Cartisano, Danny’s mother, said last week. “We’re so proud of them.”