Jeffrey and Heidi Wiener became engaged at F.A.O. Schwarz, in front of the big clock. The couple had first gone to the toy store on an early date, when they were living in Philadelphia, where they met. "We were taking the elevator down and he told me he knew that someday we would bring our kids there," Mrs. Wiener recalled.

A few years later, when they were visiting New York because Mr. Wiener was running in the New York City marathon, he took her to F.A.O. Schwarz again, and asked her to marry him. "I laughed and I cried and I hugged him and somewhere in there I said `yes,' " she said. "And then we went for a carriage ride in Central Park."

Mr. Wiener, 33, could be serious and studious -- he had degrees in aerospace engineering and business from Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and New York University -- but he never forgot how to have fun. He grew up in Trumbull, Conn., and was manager of the risk-technologies group at Marsh & McLennan. For Mr. Wiener and his wife, another favorite spot was just a few blocks from F.A.O Schwarz -- the Central Park Zoo. "He used to say that if he ever won the lottery, he would spent time working at the zoo or an aquarium," she said. "He loved animals."