Moving over to Wordpress

Yeah, it's definitely better. Here's the new link: http://sundayweddings.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!

James Madison, Will Ferrell, and an Indian Orphanage: Is Love a Marathon or a Sprint?

For Christmas, the NY Times got me some seriously interesting announcements this week. Reminding us that love is more often a marathon than a sprint, we've got the wedding of two Harvard grads (two times over) who met in a dorm in 1989 and went everywhere but towards the altar until they reconnected in 2000 (after breaking up once). Twenty years later, they married at a Greek Orthodox orphanage in India (hmmm). The slideshow is worth it for the facial expressions alone and I like what they've done with it as a story telling device. Makes me wish they put one of these with every column! And that real life wedding albums were a tad bit shorter. Regardless, it's a great story and an appropriate one for a season that, at its best, is about thinking doing something good for someone else.

Now, I'm not sure what scares me more about this next one: the fact that Will Ferrell unexpectedly shows up in the video or that the couple only met in March (talk about a sprint). Seriously, only in the New York Times wedding announcements would Will Ferrell and James Madison show up a paragraph apart. Pedigree and celebrity are staples of this section. I've long accepted axiom, but I've come to realize that Colonial lineage and celebrity connection rarely make the story better. This is a standard whirlwind romance and I wish them all the best as their relationship begins its first full year but (no offense Will Ferrell), I'll take the celebrity-free marathon to the altar over the Hollywood sprint any day.

Holiday parties are the new weddings

Yes, I'll admit it, I've been too ensconced in holiday party decadence to sit down and blog. It's been a busy week in celebration of this ending year but the wedding traffic in the Times is slowing down to a nice trickle of Jews and Gentiles, old and young, just in time for Christmas and Chanukah.

There's a couple of things I'd like to talk about in this week's edition of the times, so bear with me as I power through my holiday party induced exhaustion. First of all, because it's lunch, I'd like to to point you to this lovely piece on a Pittsburgh wedding tradition where the families bake cookies to be distributed at the wedding. Apparently these are a bigger hit than wedding cakes and ensure that the guests are riding a massive sugar high straight through the reception. Check out the video for nice scenes of cookie bliss.

This video also has a cookie bit but explores the much heavier concept of marrying later in life, after the death or divorce of a previous spouse. There's a message of hope amid tragedy that I really like in this one. The Times also explores lasting marriage from the vantage point of middle age here. I'm left thinking: what if you have a lasting marriage that ends, because of death or divorce, can you still find someone to grow old with? The fact that Irene and Tony managed to find each other, fall in love, get married, and morph into a modern-day Brady Bunch shows that there's something to the "post-marriage marriage." Love, it seems, can help ease the wounds of death and divorce, without just throwing it under the rug to clean up later. Now there's a holiday message I can get behind.

The Glow of Gay Marriage

An important component of any good reading of the New York Times wedding announcement is the gay marriage. The first gay "commitment ceremony" was featured on these hallowed pages in 2002 and homosexual couples have been a distinct presence every since. In keeping with the times, the announcements have followed the changes in law that have turned the commitment ceremonies into weddings in some states and led to defiant announcements of civil unions in others. This week's vows column offers up the tale of the slightly untraditional American family that happens to be anchored by a committed gay marriage. In a week where the New York State Senate voted down gay marriage , it's bittersweet to read this happy story of Mr. Busch and Mr. Davis's Connecticut marriage. When battling legislatures and activism seem to be so much about practicality and rights (to be with your partner at the end, to file a join tax return, etc), Mr. Busch offers up the reminder that marriage is not only about about what you get on paper, but romance too. As he puts it, "No one ever says, I want to civil union you." Amen. Maybe our states just need a little less of our cheating politicians and sports stars and a little more gay marriage.

Love is Paralyzing

Last week's vows column tells the story of the wedding of an adventurer and the leader of his nature adventure trip. This time, however, the adventurer is paralyzed from the waist down. This column, besides being your standard charming fare, also got me thinking about how the Times portrays the less than able-bodied. This week's Modern Love column featured the story of a man in a wheelchair who learns to let his wife love him, and the twenty year marriage that follows. The greatest thing about these tales, I thought, was how small a player the wheelchair actually was. Could it be that we've finally gotten past portrayals of the sick, homeless, and paralyzed that verge, at best, on stereotypical, and, at worst, one-dimensional and sensationalized (I'm certainly not picking on the Times here; the media has only recently been a reasonable place to look for reflections on life from those perspectives)? In these columns, the Times lets the romance speak for itself, and leaves the chair where it should be: the accessory to a romance that outshines a tragedy that doesn't have to define it's occupant.

Sunday Pick Me Up: The Lightening Round

As I sit here in a post-Thanksgiving fog watching Bridget Jones' Diary (the DVD that includes all the swearing), I'm finding myself increasingly appreciative of the story that doesn't follow a formula. With the effortless telling of a somewhat windy tale to the altar, this one's a gem. Yet, despite it's normalcy, the writer here has turned the 30-something Bridget Jones type on its head. This bride wasn't reading books on how to get a man, she was gingerly realizing that perhaps trusting another person wasn't so bad after all, while he was enamored with her when he saw her running around barefoot at a wedding. Doesn't get much more uplifting than that.

Jewish Sunday Pick Me Up: A Horseradish Love Story

Let's face it, we can't talk about wedding announcements without talking about Jews. They're all over them. This week is particularly heavy on the chosen people. Think I'm kidding? Check out this list. Between the Kleins, the Rothmans,and Levines, I caught this gem of Jewish love story involving all the right elements: yenta grandmothers, matchmaking, Staten Island newspapers, and, most importantly, generations of Kosher horseradish makers. It's pretty much Jewish heaven.

As the descendant of a matchmaking, Russian-Jewish grandmother, this story kind of warmed my heart. Jewish or not, you kind of have to love the elaborate involvement of their grandmothers, the Yiddish group at the nursing home, and, yes, her family's fascinating horseradish profession. And I don't even like horseradish. I can't really remember Fiddler on the Roof, but it sounds like this story would give it a run for it's money, and I hope it brightens up your Monday.

A Hindlimish Marriage (or whatever you want to call it): Keeping the Faith in the Sunday Styles

This week doctors married other doctors, a Colbert/SNL animation producer married the Sesame Street producer she had an inappropriate crush on throughout her marriage (bringing to mind the questions that I raised in last Sunday's post on how previous relationship are portrayed in the announcements), and Herbert Hoover's great-granddaughter (and Fox News Commentator) married Giuliani's former deputy director for Policy. In other words, it was just another week in the New York Times.

Now, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy reading these, I just didn't get the warm fuzzy Sunday evening feeling (usually accompanied by spilling some of my tea in my lap- maybe it's because I ran out of decaf tea?) of reading about a real sounding romance. Maybe I'm just no longer interested in romances that begin with 5:30am jokes on medical rounds or when someone is involved with someone else. It's weeks like this that I get really excited to read between the lines. That's how I found this little number. It had me at hello: "Heather Ilene Silber and Nicholas Nafis Mohamed were married Saturday evening in Boston in the Grand Ballroom of Taj Boston, a hotel. James C. Gibney, a justice of the peace in Massachusetts, performed the ceremony, which incorporated Hindu, Jewish and Muslim traditions." Amazing! Immediately reminded of the Sikh Muslim Catholic bartender with Jewish-in-laws in Keeping the Faith who counsels Brian (the priest) on his crush on Anna (the girl) who is in love with Jake (the Rabbi). Yes, I am totally biased when it comes to interfaith/interracial romances, but there's something about the incorporation of all that into a ceremony that warms my heart. Muslim-Jew? Whoa. Hindu-Muslim? um, right on. Jindu? Awesome. But all three? That's really something to write to the New York Times about.

There's much read to between the lines here and I won't ruin your reading with my interpretation. But I think that's what's great about these shorter announcements; they don't ruin your imagination with banal back stories. While they may be less narrative, they allow the ceremony to speak for itself, giving you a glimpse at the real love behind veil.

Humanity on Parade: The New York Times Takes on the Obama Marriage

Two weeks ago, the New York Times published the tale of two young lawyers who fell in love when she was in charge. Now, with their careers and lives taking them in new and, perhaps, unexpected directions, he seems to be one with, arguably, a bit more responsibility.

By the time I got around to reading the tale of the Obamas' Marriage, earlier this week, it was still on the list of the most emailed articles in the Times. Though New York Times readers may not represent the best cross-section of America, it's clear, that politics aside, America has fallen for the marriage of Barack and Michelle. The article takes a personal look at the first couple's marriage, how they relate to each other, what she's had to give up, and how they are actually spending more time together now than ever before in his political career. It's a great article that does an excellent job of portraying the very human relationship between these two smart cookies (as my mom would say), but as an student of the way the New York Times writes about weddings, my curiosity lies in what draws us to the Obamas as a nation and how the Times advertises their marriage.

Don't get me wrong. I think that the union of the Obamas is a happy one. While the article makes allusions to the Clintons, I am crossing my fingers that mistresses aplenty don't reveal themselves in the coming years. It just doesn't seem like his style. Their legitimate and real happiness aside, I do believe that there is somewhat of a calculated public image and I don't mean that in a bad way. I just believe that they are too smart and value their marriage too much to put all of it out there for all to see. But I think what draws us to them is that they give us enough of their humanity to see ourselves in their marriage. This article portrays them, particularly Michelle, as real people with valid concerns about diving face first into public office - and a public personal life. This is what makes them so brilliant: they still look like real people, despite being in a position most of us will never be in.

And it's an example of what the New York Times does so well. Turning people who have lives that are completely foreign from what most of its readers know into real people who we can empathize with is no small feat. And they said education was the great equalizer. For now, though, I'm giving the credit to the Obamas, because I've seen less endearing and more regular folks in the Vows columns who come out with a little bit less of my empathy. The best writers may be able to bring out the humanity of their subjects, but there's got to be some there to start with.

This Married Life - Some Secrets Aren't Meant for Sundays

For all of those who think that I'm the only one obsessed with the glorious wedding announcements (though I'm guessing if you're reading this blog, you probably are right with me on that one) and their role in society, check out this week's This American Life, the show adored by newshounds and public radio hipsters alike (and hipster-newshounds).

This week's episode frames its discussion of infidelity with the dissection of the Vows Column that many readers found so appalling a few weeks back (and that I blogged about with a little bit too much gusto). The episode brings out some big questions about the nature of wedding announcements. What makes the New York Times wedding announcements so appealing to a lot of readers, are its one-sided, happy-ending filled narratives. Anyone who is or has been in a relationship knows that true fairy tales don't exist (though I did manage to make it into my carriage before it turned into a pumpkin this Halloween) and often the Times does a great job of turning normal relationships into fairy tales whose trouble-free happy endings stand by virtue of the simple fact that we won't see what happens to couples after they say their vows, and the Times runs its "Vows." And even more so, the Times gives us only a cursory overview of how they got to the altar, glossing over infidelities or hinting at difficult points in the relationship that the couple seem destined to overcome. In the cases of infidelity, there's no input from the scorned partner or even an overt mention of the affair, as the contributor to This American Life says, in the narrative that ends in the altar, it's only a speed bump in the couple's journey. The show then goes on to ponder why those who don't have to profess their infidelity to the world, unlike exposed Governors or presidential candidates, choose to do so, especially when they include a cheating wife who stole away to Paris to be with a member of Il Divo.

Personally, I think it's best to keep it all inside. While I'm always curious for more details about the lives of those featured on these hallowed pages - in fact I think it's the teaser into the often imponderable lives of others that keeps me coming back - I believe that there's a time and a place for everything. As the This American Life segment went onto explore, the chances that a relationship between the cheaters will last is indeed slim. Is this, marriage makers who got to the altar after cheating on a significant other, how you want to be remembered by people like me, as the one downer in an otherwise glowing Sunday? I think not. However, some parts of interwoven narratives are impossible to extract from one another and, as a believer that the truth is always better than lies, if this is what the relationship is, perhaps it's best to own it.

My question then becomes: when do moral issues start to affect what announcements are featured on the pages? Is there even a place for that sort of thing? Say, if Elliot Spitzer married his prostitute, would that be a Vows column? Who gets a say in that? Should we care? I say, do what you want New York Times, because I'll always be back for more. As for the cheaters, well, I learned in kindergarten that those never prosper but if you've made yours prosperous than who am I to stand in the way, judging you as you make my Sunday glee a little less gleeful.

This Sunday's Pick Me Up: Better than Bollywood: Two Documentarians Overcome Obstacles, Find Love on Set

A friend who dated a white Bollywood producer once told me that the one romantic issue that Bollywood films never seem to touch on is relationships between Indians and the white people who love them. These stories, thankfully, aren't in short supply in the NYTimes wedding announcements. But This is the first vows column featuring such a romance that I can recall. Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly are no strangers to the Times. I remember reading articles and reviews about their documentary film, "The Way We Get By," which follows the groom's mother and several other elderly Maine folk who welcome home from and send local troops off to service. And the Times' familiarity with its subjects shows. It deals with the couple's issues (career uncertainty, her family's reluctant and eventual approval, and the poverty inherent in choosing to do what they love) with grace. The "It's a Wonderful Life" moment where the town pulls together a wedding for them is priceless, heartfelt, and, while the cynic in me says that two starving artists featured in the New York Times more than once could probably afford their own wedding, the romantic in me loves the real-life, poetic, happy-ending. While I'm sure they, like all couples, will face inevitable speed bumps, it's nice to think that there is a bit of movie magic in the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Sunday Pick Me Up: Regis and Kelly Producer Trumps Ivanka, Meets Man of Dreams on Interwebs

Here's a wedding announcement for today's reality TV and internet romances. Regis Philbin tried to hook his producer up and she ends up finding her husband through an online profile her Jewish grandmother forced her to write before she died. It's a sweet story, for sure, and it was definitely my Sunday pick me up.

However, my question here is: how did this great story trump Ivanka's wedding? Could it be that the New York Times has realized that the story of a real person (albeit one who works on a TV show) is much more appealing to readers than the headline of two real estate mogul children who have lived a life most of us can't comprehend? There's something accessible about "Schully's" journey to the altar; a human element that Ivanka and her New York Post publishing hubby just don't have (yeah, he's 28). Ivanka doesn't even get a traditional post headline, which is, I guess, her consolation prize for not holding down the Vows column this week (she's probably been a shoe-in since birth). Here's their tale, if you're interested, but I'm sticking with those with a bit more accessibility this week.

Ah, young love and the Great Depression

Since my last post was about videos, I'll keep up the trend and discuss the heartwarming story of two Harvard nerds from New Jersey who found love in a summer program for really smart people. It's actually very cute.


Usually, when I watch the video I'm intrigued enough to read the announcement hidden among the masses. This time was no exception and drew me to a very interesting historical tidbit I didn't know about. Check out this paragraph about the bride keeping her name:

?Her decision to keep her surname is something of a break with family tradition. A paternal great-grandfather, Abraham Ochs, changed his name to Abraham Rosen. Her paternal grandfather, the late Emanuel Rosen, transformed himself into Robert Manners while looking for a job during the Depression."

I'm guessing Emanuel Rosen in the '30s was much more a burden than it is today. An interesting reminder of the anti-semitism that was rampant not only in Europe during the period and a fascinating historical tidbit. Thank you, New York Times, and Jessica Manners for giving me a little something more to chew on with this Harvard love story.

You can check out the full announcement here.

Advertising Stability

I think I've got a couple of posts up my sleeve this week, as this week's announcements are chock full of interesting stuff. Considering there are about half as many as there have been in the height of the summer, that's a pretty big accomplishment. Thank god Ivanka Trump got married to keep us all interested!

Before I dive into this week's vows, the headline below it, and Jews changing their names to get jobs during the depression (yes, really), I'd like to bring up a little something that popped up just as I opened my blog screen to hash this out. As I tried to make sense of real estate moguls, Regis & Kelly, and happy endings, I started to hear the music that opens every video for the Weddings & Celebrations section. Wow, I thought to myself, I really have crossed the line: I hear this music in my head when I'm just thinking about weddings. But lo and behold, I've maintained some degree of separation between reality and the Sunday Styles (difficult thought it has been all these years) and it was just the Estee Lauder sponsored replay of the past five or six State of the Union videos.

Apparently, "Beautiful" by Estee Lauder is the scent of marriages that lasted beyond the pages of the original wedding announcement. Nowhere, in the Estee Lauder Sponsored Archive is the "beautiful story" that I wrote about last week. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that (I mean the love story of Susan & William definitely made me cry) but it just goes to show you what happens when a perfume sponsors an archive: divorce just doesn't sell, even if it was a legitimate, touching, and sad video worth watching. I'm still not sure how I feel about this new trend, but with newspapers in trouble all over the place, it's probably better to sponsor State of the Union videos than say the "Raytheon Sponsored Iraq War Update" to keep them afloat. Right now, I'm thinking sponsoring a wedding video archive is either genius or sad, but what do you think?

This Sunday's Pick Me Up: A Raging Feminist's Big, Fat, Happy Wedding

Evidence for changed expectations and perspectives abounds in these announcements (one of the things that keeps me coming back). Today's Vows column chronicles the seemingly unlikely story of Jessica Valenti and Andrew Golis. She's a feminist author and blogger, he helps run Talking Points Memo. They fall in love. And apparently that's all you really need for a real, interesting, and heartfelt romance. Now, that's the way to end a Sunday.

P.S. I love what she has to say about feminism. Especially as a fan of "high heels, formulaic crime dramas, vampire books and the occasional reality show." If by vampire books you mean Harry Potter and by occasional, you mean every night. Except when I'm watching Cold Case.

Video killed the wedding announcement?

One of my favorite portions of the glorious time suck that is the New York Times Weddings & Celebrations page is the video that comes with it. Usually, it is a "Vows" video telling the story of a (yawn) couple who met at a gym, but the ones I like best are the State of the Union videos that revisit couples featured in previous Vows columns (you know, the big headliners who get a half page in the print version of the Times). Last week's was a particularly unique State of the Union video chronicling a couple who married, had two kids, and "changed and grew" to the point where she decided she needed to date a woman. Yeah, you read that right. Props to the NYTimes for chronicling a nontraditional happy ending and giving us a State of the Union that shows that sometimes a marriage made in the NYTimes doesn't last. In all my years of reading these, this is the first State of the Union I've seen that's touched on this once upon a time unspeakable concept, and, despite its bittersweet taste, I found it refreshing - especially when compared to the recent vows column that seemingly glorified the infidelity of the woman who married a member of Il Divo.

These two provide great examples of different ways the unraveling of a marriage has been treated in the Times. An infidelity that led to marriage to a pop opera star was described as an operatic opus, while the story of a couple who married despite what turned out to be unchangeable differences seems touching and deeply human. Infidelity, to my taste, should never be glorified but my question here is this: would I feel differently about the opera if it was a video instead? And would the bittersweet story turn bitter if it were words on the page instead of the faces of the two people who ended up apart?

For those interested, here's a link I dug up of the Walsh/Gaugy pre-split announcement: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/21/style/weddings-vows-candace-walsh-and-peter-gaugy.html

I love this shit: or why I decided to stop twittering and start a blog

For me, the New York Times wedding announcements have long been a Sunday tradition. When I was in high school, my mother, bless her, made a it a weekly ritual to bring back bagels and the New York Times. In middle school, I yanked out the Parade Magazine and the Comic Strip from the Albany paper. In high school, I went straight for the Styles. It was a marriage that would last.

In high school, the wedding announcements were like romantic comedies but with real people - and they provided a weekly exhibit of the happy endings that a dreamy teenager craved. As I neared the end of college, and my mother's loving packages that included hard copies of the Sunday Styles, I perused them for career options, figuring if these people made it in the New York Times wedding announcements, they must be doing quite well for themselves. And when I was feeling cynical, they were social commentary or, quite simply, an information source. But through it all, and the tragedies and triumphs of adult life, they have served as a Sunday pick me up - even when I'm now old enough to know that while there is reliability in the happiness on the pages of the New York Times every week, real life happy endings are bit trickier.

The point is: the wedding announcements aren't just about love, they are about social class in America, about the recession, about old and new society, about the future of relationships, and about the future of this country. But at their best, and most pure, they are about two people, well-connected though they may be, who decided to make a go of it in an imperfect world where happiness takes work, but is worth it every time.

And I think there's a place for all of that in our Sunday reading. I'm starting this blog because I can't stop posting links to announcements or sending them to friends. But the point here is to show you some of what's great, fascinating, thought-provoking, and downright rude about the wedding announcements (ok, so I know wedding season is pretty much over, but so is my summer, and I'm looking ahead to a winter indoors). I know I'm not alone in my fascination with this weekly ray of hope in the gloomy weekend's end, so I'm hoping that I'll post some of the best, interesting, and, sometimes, annoying announcements of each week to make your Sunday dread a little less dreadful.

My first Sunday attempt begins tonight.