in journalism, Uncategorized

This Wedding Announcement Troubles Me

Today’s NYTimes has a wedding announcement that prominently features lives that have been destroyed as a result of the happy couple:

So Ms. Riddell was surprised to find herself eagerly looking for Mr. Partilla at school events — and missing him when he wasn’t there. “I didn’t admit to anyone how I felt,” she said. “To even think about it was disruptive and disloyal.” What she didn’t know was that he was experiencing similar emotions. “First I tried to deny it,” Mr. Partilla said. “Then I tried to ignore it.” But it was hard to ignore their easy rapport. They got each other’s jokes and finished each other’s sentences. They shared a similar rhythm in the way they talked and moved. The very things one hopes to find in another person, but not when you’re married to someone else. Ms. Riddell said she remembered crying in the shower, asking: “Why am I being punished? Why did someone throw him in my path when I can’t have him?”

Needless to say, Ridell and Partilla divorced their their spouses and wound up together. These sorts of things happen all the time, but it is unsettling to see it detailed on the NYTimes wedding announcements page (whose existence I’m not a big fan of to begin with). But I guess, if you’re going to write about weddings in the first place in a national publication, you might as well feature them in all their messy, hurtful glory.