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This is just a sample post, testing the aspen princess category
ok, you clicked on read more, but this is all you get.

This photo, taken on our wedding day by New York Times photographer Daniel Bayer, seems to say it all about living in Aspen.

For the last 41 years, my name was Alison Berkley. Then finally, on September 18, 2011 I got married and changed my name. Just like that.

“It’s not every day you get to give away your 41 year-old daughter,” my Dad said as he began his toast at our wedding reception.

He was booed.

Maybe it’s because everyone in the room knew what a long road it had been. My whole life story, up to the point when I married Ryan, was recently documented in The New York Times. When I heard they were interested in the story, I was like, “I’m not marrying a Rockefeller. I’m marrying the maintenance guy from Mounds View, Minnesota.”

Since it came out, people are constantly asking me “How did you get in the New York Times?” as if it had required a bribe or something.

“We’d have to have our daughter’s wedding on the moon to garner that kind of attention,” said one snobby acquaintance who simply could not wrap her mind around the attention I was getting. From her point of view, I’d married the help.

The truth is, the New York Times contacted me. For the last decade, I’ve been documenting and lamenting my love life in my weekly column, “The Princess’s Palate” in The Aspen Times. So when news got out that I finally found my prince (the name Ryan means “little king” in Gaelic) I guess it was, well, newsworthy.

For me, it’s a new beginning. A fresh start. A new identity. A new name.

That’s why I’ve embraced the name Ali Margo. I like it. It has a little pep, a little zing. It’s catchy and cute and kind of cool. Everyone told me not to change it because of the years I spent building my portfolio. My response to that is it’s time for a new one. Bigger, better, and with a much wider net. Plus, it suits me.

People are just going to have to get used to it.

Please feel free to comment or to write me anytime and let me know what you think of my new site.

kisses,

ali mxx