A Very Special Wedding

A new generation of people with Down syndrome are living longer, finishing school, getting jobs and now--with a little help--beginning to marry

It's a perfect morning for a wedding in tiny Dolgeville, N.Y. A soft breeze tames the July sun; birds do tremolos from above the clapboard cottages of a village so quaint it holds an annual Violet Festival. Beneath the narrow spire and wooden beams of the United Lutheran Presbyterian Parish, Carolyn Bergeron, 29, and Sujeet Desai, 25, are about to take their vows. "There is news today," says the Rev. James Paulson. "Love," he says, can't be stopped by cultural differences or different faiths. "Love can't be stopped by Down syndrome."

Carrie and Suj, as they're known, beam through much of the ceremony--their...

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