Every week, the New York Times' Weddings and Celebrations section lets you know which powerful, rich, famous, and/or attractive people are joining like in holy matrimony and the conspiracy to grind your hopes and dreams to dust. And every week, our Intern Alexis subjects the happy couples to her tough-but-fair rating system.

This week it all came down to the Preppies versus the Perfects. On the one hand, we had the museum-grant-writing, lobster-shorts-embroidering Gamble-Bridier match straight outta Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Greenwich, CT. For heaven's sake, their last name is Bridier. As in "They are BRIDIER than all y'all other brides." On the other hand, we had Sarah Jewett and Brian Smith, Princeton- and Harvard-educated Eurasia-luvin' do-gooders whose first kiss involved a subway escalator in St. Petersburg and the phrase "we're running out of steps," which made us just swoon, swoon and swoon!!

Kirstin Gamble and Andrew Bridier

  • Kristen's parents are "of Greenwich, CT": +1
  • Andrew's full name is "Andrew Philip Jacques Bridier": +3
  • "Bridier" means "more bride-like": +2
  • Andrew's parents are "of Nantucket": +1
  • Kristen has a MA from Upenn in historic preservation: +2
  • Kirsten is a grant-writer at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, while Andrew manages "Murray's of the Vineyard," a clothing store in Edgartown Mass, owned by his parents, and is the founder of Casataway Clothing, a line of restort wear that makes items such as these. For such a preppy combo: +10

Total: 19


Sarah Jewett and Brian Smith

  • Sarah is a program development officer at the Eurasia Foundation, an organization in Washington that provides financing to nonprofit organizations in the former Soviet Union: +2
  • She graduated cum laude from Princeton; Brian magna cum laude from Harvard: +8
  • Brian is studying Armenian at the Foreign Service Institute in preparation for a posting as a consular officer to the United States embassy in Yerevan, Armenia in January: +3
  • They met in St. Petersburg, where they were participating in a volunteer teaching program: +2
  • "Over the next few months, as they explored the city together, Mr. Smith contemplated kissing Ms. Jewett. "I was waiting for the right moment," he said. But it never seemed to arrive. One night, after leaving a place called the Idiot Cafe, they rode the escalator into a deep subway station. Knowing that he was running out of time, he told Ms. Jewett, 'we're running out of steps.' They were kissing when they reached the bottom.": +8

Total points: 23! Congratulations!