Let's begin at the end, at the italicized text that concludes the sprawling featured column about two lovebirds warbling together as one. At quick glance you see the paragraph is labeled a correction, but no, that's not quite right. It should really be called a celebration, or a coronation: of a person, of a more perfect union, of an ideal.
"The Vows column on July 5," the ending begins, "about the marriage of Jennifer Beck and Brian Goldblatt, misstated the number of items Ms. Beck collected to decorate the wedding."
Let's back up. There is something about the act of throwing a party for your nearest and dearest friends and family, whether it's dozens or hundreds of them, that turns chill into shrill, that morphs calm into "MOOO-OMMM!", that converts even the most disinterested into a Pinterest fiend. I say this without judgment; it often comes from a well-meaning place, and it's just how it goes. People are spending their free time and their good money on you, after all. It's only fair that you spend it back.
"She gathered more than 250 bottles and glass jars, not 100 bottles," the celebration continues.
Jennifer Beck, the Times article pointed out, is neither chill, nor calm, nor disinterested. She is "someone who enjoys perfect outcomes." She employs a "meticulous approach" and has "oh-so-exacting standards." She "picked fruit for the apple butter, decorated birdhouses, designed a walkway lined with wedding photos of their friends and family members, and collected 100 bottles and glass jars, painting them gold and filling them -- the morning of the wedding -- with a variety of flowers."
Except it wasn't 100 bottles and glass jars. It was more than 250. The truth is out there, and it matters. This is the paper of record. Centuries from now, scholars will use it to divine information about our dead society and forgotten culture. They must know the facts about our customs and our people and our norms. More than 250 bottles. You know who would stop at 100 bottles? Someone who meets their husband in Brooklyn. This is not that.
"The column also misstated the location of the bar in which the couple met." Everything rises to a crescendo. "It is in Manhattan, not Brooklyn."
And don't you ever forget.
Just as you can learn so much about a long-lost civilization by digging through its trash, the most insightful parts of the New York Times' wedding section is so often the things they get wrong. There's almost no need to read Jennifer Beck's wedding announcement; everything that matters is right there in a tidy compendium of mistakes. The same goes for another union, this one a month later:
A report on Aug. 16 about the wedding of Shana Pettinato and Michael Ricchiuto misspelled Mr. Ricchiuto's middle name. He is Michael Dominick, not Dominic. The report also erroneously included one location in New Jersey for apartments owned and managed by Rock Management, which the groom's parents own. They are in a number of cities in Bergen and Essex Counties, but not in Hackensack.
Say no more. Unless, that is, you are saying mutzadell or pruhzhoot, in which case, I'll take both.
***
Unsurprisingly, the third quarter of the year in nuptials -- July, August and September -- was as overflowing with prestige and privilege as the desk of a Harvard admissions rep.
There were daughters of the New York Stock Exchange and of New York Giants and grandsons of the founders of a small retail concern called Target Corporation. (His wedding was officiated by his bride's acupuncturist at a tennis and surf club in the Hamptons.) One couple met while working for Cartier; they now represent Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Another bride works for Fendi; one used to work for Bulgari. One pair "bonded over their shared knowledge of Star Trek," while another "bonded over a mutual love of 'Law & Order' and hot dogs."
Phil Donahue was in attendance for the marriage of a novelist and a "Sesame Street" songwriter. Alan Arkin's granddaughter married a guy she met when they both performed in an improv show "about parents on the sideline of their children's soccer game." Candace Bergen's daughter married the son of the former William & Mary soccer coach. Theirs was a union that was almost kicked way out of bounds early on: "According to Vogue.com, the bride said Mr. Albert was not initially impressed because she arrived late and complained about the Ethiopian wine."
By my unofficial count, there were over 530 couples who were featured in the Times during that three-month span, and also by my unofficial count, there was an average of one couple per month who had some sort of tie to a signer of the Mayflower Compact. (This includes Bailey and Brooks, both of whose lives were unfurled from this piece of ancient Americana, but who still finished outside the top 20!)
***
A firm handshake and warm congratulations to the duos who, by virtue of their sterling educations or the V at the end of their names or their dad being the chairman of Nordstrom, were able to rise to the top of this quarter's Society Scorecard based on our proprietary NUPTIALS algorithm (original here; a few minor tweaks here).
In first place is one of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman's well-behaved boys, who attended (and met his wife at) Princeton a few years after a sprawling residential complex called Whitman College was built. (When you learn that the wedding took place at his parents' vacation home in Telluride, it makes more sense that his mom used "a skiing metaphor" to put down rival companies at a tech event the other day.)
Rounding out the rest of the top five are all couples who had the foresight to meet their life partners as undergrads at Ivy League schools. Two schools in particular, actually: Princeton and Yale.
This Old Nassau pairing "stargazed" on a blanket in the Jersey Shore sand for their first date before frolicking in the cold November sea. Years later, they upgraded to warmer climes for their engagement, which involved a business trip to Bermuda, a "wooden toy treasure chest that [the groom] had cherished since he was 5," a "work-related accomplice," a poem and, in the end, a "sparkling diamond."
And the Yalies, so many Yalies. Magna cum laude Yalies and med school and law school Yalies and -- oh, wait, that's all the same couple. Yalies who went on to Stanford and Harvard. And Yalies featured in one of the great "Vows" columns of 2015.
The groom? "Brought a surfboard to New Haven." The bride? A contestant in a 2010 Miss Fairfield County pageant, "which she won." (Whatever, talk to me when you're a finalist in two different states, or when your mom is the 1978 Miss America.) The two of them? Took a cross-country summer-of-love road trip in which they "sampled cheese at a North Carolina goat farm, explored the French Quarter in New Orleans by foot" -- as opposed to a palanquin borne on the backs of local Cajuns, I guess? -- "and made out at the Grand Canyon."
The announcement goes on like this. He dumped her. He founded a startup called Whistle that is FitBit for dogs. He wanted her back. "Within a day, she had disentangled herself from her boyfriend." A proposal in "passion-filled desperation" prior to a Beyonce concert. And finally, a "grand gesture for a Silicon Valley chieftain":
He announced that he would be turning off his phone for the nine days from the rehearsal dinner until the couple returned from their Moroccan honeymoon.
What is love? Yalie don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more.
***
It's always interesting to see which "Vows" columns have comments enabled, and this one -- about a couple who first met in 1989, got married, had a kid, split apart and eventually reunited -- did not disappoint.
"What a sweet story," one reader wrote, before noting that she'd rather "wear underpants made of thorns and earthworms" than get back with her ex. "Did the attorneys from the divorce send a nice gift, or get invited?" asked another. "Eight pictures," lamented an onlooker, "yet not a single proper portrait or portrait pair, with actual faces. Sad."
"The story shows that many women divorce over trivial differences," someone pointed out. "Thank you for reading our story and caring enough to comment on it," the bride commented. "Oh," admonished a user from Sarasota named 'miss the sixties,' "go read the obits! Best wishes to the happy couple." Indeed.
A few comments of my own ...
• "Christian, Bookworm, Beer Snob, Conflicted Omnivore, Early Bird, World Traveler" could easily be a Twitter spam bot's profile.
• Shoutout to my pals Nikki and Rob -- or, more accurately, shoutout to their badass Florida-dwelling grannies, who upon learning after church one Sunday that they both had single grandkids living in Jackson Hole -- "my grandson is no ski bum!" one stressed -- did what any respectable set of ladies would do and set them right up. "Pat and I giggle about it," the groom's grandmother said, "because in this day of electronics and Match.com, of all the ways people meet, this is certainly the old-fashioned way, isn't it?"
• And she's right. The Times has started to add sentences to even its driest, most bare-bones announcements that outline how the bride and groom met, and while there are still plenty who meet at weddings or in fish markets on Martha's Vineyard or at mutual friends' dinner parties or at Yale-New Haven Hospital on the night shift, it's amazing how many of them involve getting hearted online. The Times has even come up with a, well, grandmotherly euphemism for when someone digitally gets yo' digits:
-- The couple were introduced through Match.com in July 2014.
-- Ms. Albano and Dr. Rachiele were introduced in 2014 through CatholicMatch.com.
-- The couple were introduced through the dating site JDate.
-- Mr. Ventresca and Ms. Luu had been introduced in 2013 through Match.com, the online dating service.
That is some next-level usage of the passive voice. I'm basically imagining the paper-clip helper dude from Microsoft Word setting unsuspecting Internet users' Spotifys to Ginuwine's "Pony," stepping out from behind their laptop screens, and pushing them toward one another the way kids do at middle school dances.
• By the way, that last couple's announcement includes a slide show with some phenomenal photo captions. An example: A harpist performs during the wedding of My Luu and Dave Ventresca Aug. 7 at the Carriage House in Galloway, N.J. The bride's family escaped Vietnam and were lost at seas before the United States Navy rescued them. They later immigrated to the United States. The groom had a more traditional American upbringing. I'm sure he did!
• Other important ways that couples first met:
-- On Tinder, while traveling in Bangkok. ("Blonds were never really my type," the bride said, and she's not alone: "I had never been attracted to the blond, tall, handsome type before," insisted another woman who later married one.)
-- On the floor at a party, in spite of unfunny jokes.
-- As young kids at their country club day camp.
-- At Yaddo.
-- On the subway platform after a cellphone was dropped onto the tracks, "prompt[ing] a conversation." (shivering)
-- At a photo shoot for the 2010 Time Out New York Singles Issue. "They briefly saw each other at the photo shoot, each thinking each other's attire was inappropriate (Ms. Smith was in sweatpants, Ms. Helburn in a leopard-print dress)."
-- At a baseball game between two choke-artist teams.
-- Because Minnesota. (These two almost certainly left comments on this recent New York Times masterpiece about apples.)
-- On a ski trip to Whistler.
-- On a ski trip to Whistler.
-- In 1983 at Greenwich House Pottery in Manhattan, where the bride was an instructor and the groom a student -- though not in her class.
-- In London during the 2012 Olympics. "I was interested in learning from his experience in creating branded content," recalled the bride. "I can't say I was head-over-heels from the beginning."
• If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, writing about humor is like dialing feet. Or favoriting tweets. Or something. (Related: This announcement contains THE ultimate Dad Joke.)
• The wedding pages are tough, man: Just when you think that you've done pretty well for yourself in the summer of 2015, just when you allow yourself to feel grateful pride that you're named after a great-grandfather who was "the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1955 to 1966," some one-upper has to come along whose great-grandfather was "the chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Roosevelt administration." The only vice to be found at that wedding was taking place on those Sun Valley ski lifts.
• "He was wearing someone else's ribbed tank top, kind of '80s looking." On dating the bed bug man.
• Most Labradoodle photo of all time.
• Be careful, prospective smug-marrieds: Times writer Lois Smith Brady, who pioneered the "Vows" column many years ago, is judging the way you chat. Three years ago, in The Greatest Vows Column the World Has Ever Known, Brady began her story with this assessment:
Alexandra Sage Mehta and Michael Robinson do not seem to belong to the Facebook generation that expresses itself in sentence fragments. In conversation, their sentences are grammatical and lovely and often sound as if previously written, if not rewritten.
And as it turns out, she would know from rewritten. "Ms. Nugent," Brady observed this past July about one bride, "looks like Kate Hudson and speaks in succinct, grammatically correct sentences." Here's mine: CHILL.
• Mazel tov to our latest Chosen Couple!
• I would pay such large sums of money to sit at the family table at this wedding and eavesdrop on the conversation between this pair's moms, "an owner of Knit-Four-Together, a yarn store in Dunlap, Ill." and "the former owner of Dollhouse Antics, a store for dollhouses and miniature accessories in New York."
• There's something so magical about boats: the gentle rock of the waves, the lovely gleam of the polished wood, the unmistakable tang of the head, the sweet release of total seasickness. This couple met on a boat in the Galapagos and were engaged three months later. These two were married "aboard the Midnight Rambler, a sailboat." This couple were married in a treehouse in their Brooklyn backyard, probably because they couldn't fit the cramped cabin of a yacht back there. (Her dad designs sailboats.) This bride's father is a boat builder too. This woman has boats on her scarf. In college, I totally raced 420s against this groom, who went on to be a founding partner in a yacht brokerage and met his wife "at a rafting-up." He wouldn't have the slightest memory of me, but his name is slightly difficult to forget.
• Can't decide if it's sadder that this couple didn't hyphenate their last names, or that this couple didn't. ("Did Eleanor Roosevelt have to deal with such nonsense?" the latter bride vents.)
• "If there's one thing we both needed to work on [in couples therapy], it was getting past our entertainment facades," explained one bride whose wedding "included an original rock opera performance written by the couple and performed by their respective bands."
***
This time last year so many couples chose Maine as the site of their nuptials that we did a mini-tournament among them. This year, the late-summer crowd overwhelmingly selected a more downeasterly standby, one accessible only by ferry or flight. That's right:
There once was a man on Nantucket
Who gave his love a large diamond nugget
He wore faded red pants
For their very first dance
But she figured "oh well ... if the schlemiel fits!"
Pre-tournament seedings are in parentheses.
PLAY-IN GAME
-DEFEATS-
(9) Taco-bar pusher.
QUARTERFINALS
(1) "An actor currently appearing in a production of 'Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike' at the Dreamland Theater in Nantucket"
-DEFEATS-
(8) Two guys who met at a restaurant in Hoboken.
(2) The daughter of a Met docent who is also "a chairwoman of the Winter Antiques Show"
-DEFEATS-
(7) The daughter of a contemporary dance company board member in Chicago.
-DEFEATS-
(4) Goldman Sachs and a Universalist Meeting House
-DEFEATS-
(5) Merrill Lynch and a rented house
SEMIFINALS
(1) over (4), because " an assistant buyer for men's wear in the online division of Macy's" can't best "an executive vice president and the general merchandising manager for men's wear at Macy's in New York."
(2) over (3), because -- well, this one was tough.
On the one hand we have a Bowdoin grad marrying not just any Middleburg grad, but one who "completed a 2,000-mile solo journey, mostly on foot, retracing the route of Alexander the Great." (Also, I love the way this couple met: A mutual friend "inadvertently scheduled dinner with both Ms. Ballard and Mr. May on the same night, and decided to turn her oversight into a blind date for her friends." I'm totally using that excuse to never have to follow through on plans with anyone for the rest of my life.)
On the other hand, we have a couple who got married not just on the island of Nantucket, but at a WHALING MUSEUM on the island of Nantucket. Alexander the Great may be an impressive guy, but as Herman Melville once wrote, "two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires." Can't argue with that.
FINALS
(1) over (2)
In the end, this bracket went all-chalk -- the substance of choice, of course, for hand-lettered signs outside a lobster shack. At first you'd think that the second seed had the upper hand. Not only do we have the whaling museum, but also Senator Kirsten Gillibrand "offered a blessing."
Look closer, though, and neither of those things is all too distinguishing. Three different weddings in the span of just over a month involved brides who work for Gillibrand. (She might be unseating Chuck Schumer as the "yenta of the Senate.") And you didn't think there was only going to be one couple with ties to a Nantucket whaling museum this summer, did you? Silly rabbit.
Our runner-up couple may have rented out the place for a night, but the winning bride's mother has made it her livelihood: She is a trustee of both "Historic New England" and "the Nantucket Historical Association, which operates a whaling museum and historic sites on the island." Nantucket antiquity is her playground. Add to that the whole "Dreamland Theater in Nantucket" thing AND the fact that the groom's mother is the founder of a cashmere company and you've identified the real winners here. "Pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about," Melville wrote, "like bits of the true cross in Rome." Let us pray.