How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into the Society Pages
If having your wedding announced in the society pages is important to you, and your relatives didn’t come over on the Mayflower, here’s what you’ll need to do.
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You Will Need
- An excellent picture of the bridal couple
- A flair for embellishment
- Networking skills
- A high-profile volunteer position
- Noteworthy achievements
- Impressive careers
- Respectable addresses
- A cute meeting story
- A grand proposal
Steps
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Step 1
Follow the rules
Find out the newspaper’s submission guidelines and follow them to the letter. Editors are busy, and they’re going to toss your application right into the bin if it’s missing critical information, is incorrectly formatted, or arrives after the deadline.
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Step 2
See eye-to-eye
Send a photo in which the eyebrows of you and your betrothed are on the exact same level, with your heads close together. That’s what the New York Times prefers, and they, after all, are the mother of all wedding announcement sections.
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Step 3
Be charitable
If you’re involved with a charitable organization, mention it. If you’re not, do your best to get your behind on a do-gooder board before submitting your wedding announcement.
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Step 4
Mention achievements
If you or your intended has done something worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, the Guinness Book of World Records, or even a spot in the circus, mention it.
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Step 5
Tweak job titles
Make everyone’s job—you, that of your beloved, and those of your parents—sound as impressive as possible. After all, you can’t turn the University of Who Cares into Harvard, but you can turn a garbage man into a waste removal expert.
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Consider having someone with a low-level job incorporate his first and middle name. Voila! Your father-in-law becomes president of David James, Inc.
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Step 6
Be geographically desirable
Proceed cautiously when providing addresses. If you, or any of your loved ones, live in a dodgy neighborhood, list the nearest nicer town instead.
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Step 7
Include a meet-cute story
If how you met was cute, say so—newspapers eat those up. An unusual proposal works, too.
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Step 8
Network
Ask everyone you know if they know anyone even remotely connected to the society pages. Someone who could do you a favor—or blackmail someone else.
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Step 9
Get over it
If you don’t have any luck, fuggedaboudit. Do you really want to be a part of a system that reveres people simply because their parents are wealthy or are fifth-generation Americans? Well, get over it.
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Mississippi was the last state to have a newspaper that accepted same-sex wedding announcements.
