I'm Registered at SHUT THE HELL UP AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

This past summer two acquaintances of mine got engaged. In the last week two friends from college became engaged. All of these people are under the age of 24. All of them have clearly lost their minds.

I really am happy for my two friends and their significant others are upstanding gentlemen. Also, I really do enjoy weddings as a party event, and they normally make me cry. I may or may not have bought a couple of issues of Bride's magazine **cough**. However, call me cynical but I think 24 is a tad young to forever be attached to someone until the cold, clammy hand of death do them part. This news prompted my mother to ask me, "So when do you think you'll be engaged?" My reply, "Gee Mom, um as soon as I find a guy who doesn't have prior convictions and will honor my request for a Cartier ring." I really am starting to get annoyed by this question. What's the big rush?

And yet every Sunday I am drawn to the wedding announcement section of the NYT Style section. I guess I do this because I'm a masochist and like to inflict the pain of being pressured to find a mate via looking at gorgeous couples with Rhodes Scholar-ish accolades.

I especially enjoy WASPy announcements. Such as, "The bride graduated from Cornell summa cum laude and received her master's in art history from Cambridge. She was a Fulbright Scholar studying vases and plates of the Ming dynasty. She is now employed by Christie's. Her father is a doctor and her mother is on the Board of United Way. The bridegroom graduated phi betta kappa from Harvard, where he also received his MBA. He now runs his own real estate company. His father is a senior partner at Sacks, Goldman, and Toushe and his mother is a visiting professor at Columbia. The couple met at a charity event for UNICEF. After a honeymoon in [insert South Pacific island], the couple will reside in Greenwich, Conneticut."

Are you kidding me? How about the NYT print a real life story. Like, meeting a normal guy who doesn't have a masters (and this is who I seem to always attract anyway for some reason. I guess something about me screams blue-collar???!?!?). If I ever get married, this is what my announcement will say:

"The bride, who will keep her last name professionally, majored in English and Sociology at the College of William and Mary, where she honed her flip-cup skills and developed a disdain for tri-cornered colonial hats. She now works at a PR firm, deftly crafting press releases on "non-sexy" topics and spinning marketing strategies. The bride's mother is a web development manager for DTIC and her father is a Navy Archives Declassification Supervisor. The bridegroom, majored in electronics at ITT Tech. He works part-time out of his garage and hopes to start his own company from the money the bride has saved. His mother is a sales assistant at Wal-Mart and his father is a janitor for Prince William County Schools. His previous marriage ended in divorce. The couple will honeymoon in Las Vegas and reside in Arlington, VA. The couple met on a fateful metro ride home from Lucky Bar, whilst the bride was experiencing "motion sickness." The bridegroom offered assistance, to which the bride replied, "You had me at Orange Line."