Love and Marriage

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a pretty avid reader of the New York Times Wedding Section (also the Style section, but that’s a blog post for another day.) I usually read the wedding section some time in my Monday morning routine, though every now and then it will be pushed to Tuesday or Wednesday (I am actually busy some days, after all). Having just helped a friend with her wedding this weekend, I’ve been in a particularly lovey-dovey sort of mood, waxing about love, companionship and the covenant of marriage. Or complaining about how much my feet hurt and how tired I am. Ah, young love.

Before I dive headlong into this, let me make it clear that I’m supportive of wedding announcements in newspapers (ie, I don’t think they’re morally wrong or vapid or whatever.) And I’m even supportive of the three page NYT Wedding Section (NYTWS from now on) lead stories, if they have good pictures (one of my coworkers had a FANTASTIC article and picture spread last summer), mostly because they give me something to read that isn’t a spreadsheet.

Sometimes the stories in the NYTWS are quite pathetic/boring/sad. There’s plenty of “the reason I’m in here is because my dad was somebody” sort of stories, and there are also quite a lot of “it was the twentieth marriage for both of us, but we knew this was the one that would last.” You might want to reconsider that statement, honey. I also remember a couple weeks ago there was a lady who wore a Project Runway candy bar wrapper dress (remember that episode?) and got married (maybe for the third time?) at Dylan’s Candy Bar. Creative, that’s for sure. And oh the pictures. Man, I love them. It’s like eating drugs to me. But I’m always sad (no, really) when they only have one really fuzzy or awkward picture of the couple. And a picture of a big crowd of people? That should only be used for blog posts about a White House protest. See below. We want to see dresses, location and jewels, people!

In this week’s section, two things stood out to me.

First, was this little remark:
“Mr. Rizvi changed tactics in the summer of 2007. He sent her a pink iPod on which he had installed 40 songs that reminded him of her and their relationship, and he had inscribed “I hope the juice is worth the squeeze” on the back of the device.

“It was the most thoughtful, touching thing that anyone had ever done for me,” she said.”

WHAT? THAT was the most “thoughtful, touching thing” that anyone had ever done for you? How about a romantic dinner out somewhere with fantastic wine, or a weekend getaway or long vacation or just a home-cooked meal, snuggled up on the couch together? The songs, I will give her, are a nice gesture, (though 40 songs barely covers 2 hours, and I hope there’s more than just 2 hours of songs that make him think about you). But an ipod with a horrible quote? First, an ipod is not thoughtful or romantic. It’s a mass-produced, over-exposed technical device. That I very much appreciate during the work day, which means it therefore cannot be thoughtful or touching. AND, if someone had made that orange/squeeze/juice comment to me I would have slapped him for being fresh (ha ha, get it? Fresh? Juice?) because it just SOUNDS wrong. Wow. Girl needs to get out more! I guess we all have different views on what’s thoughtful and touching. This would not be one for me.

Secondly, there’s all the short wedding announcements that come after the big two or three page story. They usually read something like this, accompanied by a close-up of the couple:

“Jane and John were married on Saturday in an unrecognizable church, by their friend who became a certified minister over the internet for the occasion. Jane, of Somewhere, US, is the daughter of Bob, a contractor with xxx and a graduate of xxx and Susan, an investment specialist with xxx. John, of Somewhere-else, US, is the son of Joe, an xxx with xxx and Betty, an xxx with xxx.”

First, let’s discuss the “friend certified over the internet” thing. Um, that’s weird to me. And is there a section for this on theknot.com? If not, they need to tap into it. I’m thinking a little tab that says “How a friend can serve as a priest or justice of the peace without being religious or studying law.” And the unrecognizable denomination? Hmmm. When did there become a church called “Mystical Transformation and Peace Pipe Union of Universal Love and Hope”? I don’t think they have any of those here in DC. Must be European.

Next, let’s talk about announcing where your parents work. When did THAT become a part of wedding announcements? Has it been like this for a while and I just missed it? And if so, why does it matter? I can understand the whole “where people are from” part (so many people get married in places where they didn’t grow up, me included, and I believe a person’s sense of “where they’re from” makes a real difference in their life), but who really cares what your parents do? Or where they went to school for that matter, especially since they graduated like 100 years ago? It seems to be a round-about way of being snobby and/or stuck up, by announcing you went to some prestigious school or work for somebody really important. And God knows wedding announcements are NOT the place to do that.

Cough cough. Wink wink.