MELISSA BLOCK, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
And I'm Robert Siegel. The wedding announcements of the Sunday New York Times document much more than just nuptials. As our own David Brooks pointed out some years ago in his book "Bobos in Paradise," on those pages, you can almost feel the force of the mingling SAT scores. It's Dartmouth marries Berkeley, MBA weds PhD. Brooks saw patterns of status in those New York Times announcements with their catalogue of academic degrees and parents professions.
Rob Baedeker and his fellow members of the Kasper Hauser comedy group have found enough material for a very funny little book.
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Mr. ROB BAEDEKER (Comedian, Author): Caroline Hanson and Dean Van Wyck. Caroline Hanson was married to Dean Van Wyck on Saturday at the Peach Tree farm in Scarsdale, New York. The groom, 38, wore tight-fitting purple breeches, a white silk shirt, a fox-fur mantle, and a livery collar from which was suspended a diamond the size of a walnut. Mr. Wyck's padded codpiece was stuffed with jewels and weapons. He carried a staff made of silver and bedecked with topaz. The bride, 33, wore a strapless white Vera Wang wedding gown.
SIEGEL: That's a reading from "Weddings of the Times: A Parody." That's the name of the book. And Rob Baedeker joins us now from San Francisco. Welcome.
Mr. BAEDEKER: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: What inspired "Weddings of the Times"?
Mr. BAEDEKER: Well, I think there are a lot of inspirations. You know, the wedding announcements in the Times are so perfect and polished, and I think the inspiration comes from the that sort of primal feeling one gets when one sees a perfect picture, which is to sort of scribble a mustache on it or draw some sunglasses on it like you did when you were a kid.
We found something interesting is what's not said. And one of the pleasures of reading the Times announcements is sort of wondering what's left out or what's going on behind the scenes.
Jane Resnick and Paul Merrill.
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Mr. BAEDEKER: Jane Resnick and Paul Merrill were married yesterday at the Los Palos Community Center. Ms. Resnick, 28, is the founder and proprietor of The Bead 'n' Seed store in Ukiah, California. The store operates using a unique model of community commerce, whereby shoppers can milk goats or provide child care in exchange for beads or seeds.
The bride's parents are Dr. and Mrs. John Resnick of Long Island. Dr. Resnick is chief of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. The bridegroom, 39, is also a doctor: Dr. Stoopid, a noted medical marijuana advocate who passes out joints from a unicycle.
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Mr. BAEDEKER: It should be noted that stupid is spelled s-t-o-o-p-i-d.
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SIEGEL: …o-o-p-i-d. All of these, of course, come with a photograph to depict the couple in that perfect eyes-at-the-same-level pose that the New York Times requires.
Mr. BAEDEKER: Very important to line the eyebrows up.
SIEGEL: One of your wedding announcements in the book is Bathroom Woman, Bathroom Man.
Mr. BAEDEKER: That's right. We felt like that was a couple that needed to be connected. So we have, finally, the wedding announcement, from the silhouette icon on each of those doors.
SIEGEL: That tell us which bathroom to go into. Why don't you read that announcement for us?
Mr. BAEDEKER: Sure. The man and the woman from the bathroom door married each other on Saturday at Telco Park. For the ceremony, the bride and groom chose a clean, modern look. The groom wore a pearl colored, Nehru tuxedo with matching cashmere stump covers. The bride wore a neckless ivory A-line dress that accentuated her chewable, vitamin C-shaped head and (unintelligible) legs. For their honeymoon, the couple is planning to mail themselves to Belize.
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SIEGEL: Very good. What David Brooks remarked on some years ago in the Times notices was the similarity of the people who get married and the sort of academic and professional inbreeding of the Times wedding announcements. But you have one: Heather Wilson, Darren Steegan(ph), which is I think is my favorite for the wildly different couple that get married.
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Mr. BAEDEKER: Heather Wilson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Wilson of New Haven, was married yesterday to Darren Steegan, son of Mr. and Mrs. Toby Steegan of Wahasset, New York. The bride, 28, is the former national women's tennis champion and currently works as a Broadway actress and fashion model for Armani. She deferred enrollment at Yale University in order to serve as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader from 1997 to 2001. The bridegroom, 38, resides with his parents in Wahasset. He is a part-time student at Ichaba(ph) Community College, where he studies the Internet. The elaborate ceremony took place in Mr. Steegan's mind.
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SIEGEL: This is the wedding announcement he would like to see in the New York Times.
Mr. BAEDEKER: That's right. The book allowed us to pair a lot of people together that, you know, you might not see in the real paper and to be little more inclusive. You know, we have zombies and Chihuahuas.
SIEGEL: On page 54, there's a good couple: Bernice Bannister and Stephen Shipley.
Mr. BAEDEKER: Bernice Eleanor Bannister and Stephen Lee Shipley were married on Saturday by the Reverend Pace Newfeld at the Hapsbury Farm near Nashua, New Hampshire. The bride, 35, runs a rabbit rescue and rehabilitation center in Nashua. The groom, 38, is a doctoral candidate in geology at the University of New Hampshire. He is also a part-time falconer. In separate attempts to surprise one another, both Ms. Bannister and Mr. Shipley released groups of their respective hobby animals in a nearby pasture: she, a warren of Dutch lops - he, a cauldron of Peregrine falcons.
And I'll leave the rest to the imagination. But, there you go.
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SIEGEL: You'd have to say that no animals were harmed in the writing of this book.
Mr. BAEDEKER: That's right.
SIEGEL: Well, Rob Baedeker of the Kasper Hauser comedy group and of the group that has written the book "Weddings of Times," thanks a lot for talking with us. And we'll listen to one more of your announcements as we've produced it here.
Mr. BAEDEKER: Thanks a lot, Robert.
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Mr. BAEDEKER: The best gifts come in small packages. For Phyllis and Jim Cantrell(ph), the small packages took the form of miniature horses. The groom, 32, who founded the mini-horse aid organization known as Painted Promise, met Ms. Baumgarten(ph) at a mini-donkey roundup for singles. Everyone in this community knows Phyllis, he said. Something about small horses brings out a big heart in this girl.
The bride, 30, who maintains the Web site littlehorsehelper.com, was wooed by the groom's commitment to these animals. He's really been an innovator in the world of tiny equine charity, she said. In 2007 alone, he raised $240. For animals this small, that's a huge amount of money. Remember that even a big mini-horse can be smaller than a human hair.
Sometimes I do wonder if we're talking about the same kind of mini-horse, said the groom. I'm thinking of the ones that are about the size of a Great Dane.
SIEGEL: And speaking of weddings, we're collecting stories about the least-appropriate song that you've heard at a wedding. Tell us about the wedding song that fell flat by going to nprmusic.org.
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