LI couple misses out on 'Today' show wedding

Hicksville couple Lauren Ulatowski and Greg Merante, both 29, didn't get the big prize on the "Today" show's annual "Today Throws a Wedding: Modern Love" contest, but they didn't walk away empty-handed.

After the votes, cast Monday and Tuesday, were tabulated, the winners were announced on the show Wednesday morning.

A Missouri couple, Melissa McMillin and Jeremy Gebhardt, received the most viewer votes and will wed next month on Rockefeller Plaza — and on national television — as fans and well-wishers look on.

“I am so excited right now!” Gebhardt exclaimed live via satellite from Bagram, Afghanistan, where he is serving in the military, as the news was announced on the "Today" show.

The winning couple will wed on Sept. 30.

Ulatowski and Merante and the other finalists may not have won the top prize, but were surprised with a Caribbean trip and a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in the Bahamas.

The Hicksville couple met in 1999 on their first day of freshman orientation at SUNY Fredonia, Merante, a Garden City native, said.

Ulatowski is from Lewiston, N.Y., a village near Niagara Falls. "They brought us into an auditorium, and we stood onstage in a circle and introduced ourselves. We both kind of scoped each other out," he said.

Merante, a music major, was broken off into one group and Ulatowski, a psychology major, into another. "Lauren actually ditched her group to be in our group, so that was pretty cool," he said. The couple came full circle when Merante proposed "a couple of months ago" on the very same auditorium stage.

Today they reside in Hicksville, where Merante works for the family insurance business, Complete Claims Service. Ulatowski is an admissions counselor at Farmingdale State College.

Their backup plan is now a Sept. 24, 2011, wedding on Grand Island, also near Niagara Falls - where they don't plan to honeymoon. "I'm hoping to go to someplace tropical," the groom-to-be said.

Looks like he'll get his wish.