01:00 AM EST on Sunday, January 11, 2004

Ellen Weyburn and Dr. Chuong Pham

The Chanler at Cliff Walk, Newport

10.12.03

In 1975, when Chuong Pham was only 7 months old, his parents made a perilous escape from Vietnam to the United States. Chuong grew up in Middletown, Rhode Island, where his father, once an officer in the South Vietnamese navy, and his mother, a high school teacher, settled, along with Chuong's then-20-month-old brother.

Today, Chuong's family and friends from the Vietnamese community have come to celebrate his marriage to Ellen Weyburn, whom he met six years ago when both were students at Northeastern University in Boston.

"We met in an anatomy of physiology class in January 1998," says Ellen. "I was a freshman studying speech pathology and Chuong was in the master's program." There was an immediate attraction and by February, they were dating. "We kept finding connections: his cousin lived in my dorm, my sister was married to his brother's best friend. . ."

They had dated for only a year when Chuong left to go to dental school at Temple University in Philadelphia. And Ellen left to study elementary education at Salem State College in Salem, Mass. For four years, they were apart, enduring it because they knew that they would eventually get married.

Though Chuong grew up in America, some Vietnamese traditions remain. The couple had a traditional Vietnamese engagement ceremony about a year ago in which Chuong's family came to Ellen's home with a dowry of sorts, "most of which is symbolic, like a roasted pig," says Ellen. "Basically, his family asks mine for permission for me to join their family." It was a big affair with about 60 or 70 people.

Another tradition is that the Vietnamese typically marry in the groom's hometown. So today, under a steady light rain, Ellen and Chuong will exchange vows in a tent on the sprawling lawn of The Chanler in Newport, the French Empire-style summer home built in 1873 by New York Congressman John Chanler.

Set on five acres above the Atlantic Ocean, it was the first mansion on the Cliff Walk. Ellen and Chuong are the first to be married there since it opened this past July as a 20-room boutique hotel following its multi-million dollar renovation.

In Vietnam, the groom's family traditionally pays for the wedding. So, since both sets of parents wanted to pay for the couple's festivities, "our parents are co-hosting," says Ellen.

And now, that four years of separation has paid off for the couple. According to plan, Chuong is a dentist, practicing in Newburyport, where the couple lives. "He's an associate with my former dentist!" says Ellen, who teaches fourth grade in Salisbury. "I've dropped my dental insurance and now get it all done for free."