Scoring Sunday's Nuptials: Woman Famous for Dating Black Guys Marries White Guy
Always good to see a face we recognize in the wedding announcements. This week, it's insult comic Lisa Lampanelli! Gawker weddings expert Phyllis Nefler has never insulted anyone, ever. Will she break her streak in this week's altarcations? Find out.
When you know, you know.
For "Queen of Mean" comedienne Lisa Lampanelli, famous for her celebrity roasts ("She made her break at the 2002 New York Friars' Club roast of Chevy Chase, and went on to participate in the roasts of Denis Leary, Pamela Anderson, Jeff Foxworthy, Flavor Flav, William Shatner, Joan Rivers, and David Hasselhoff and to serve as Roastmaster for Larry the Cable Guy") the lighting-flash moment came before she ever went on a date with Jimmy Cannizzaro.
"I swear this guy is going to want to meet me, and then he's going to want to marry me," she thought after Cannizzaro sent her an email with a headshot of himself and the note "I think you can use a big Italian in your life."
A three-hour phone chat and three-hour first date later, she learned she was right.
She had a surprise for him on their second date: going to a New York Yankees game and sitting in Derek Jeter's box, between home plate and first base. (Derek Jeter's girlfriend, the actress Minka Kelly, who is a friend of Ms. Lampanelli's, had offered the tickets.) He was delighted, despite being a Mets fan, and after the game he told her that he loved her.
"Wow, this is going fast," she remembered thinking, and changed the subject. Two hours later, she said she loved him, too. He then asked if they could date exclusively. She needed to think about it.
After a couple of days, she agreed - thereby ending one of her main comedy routines: how much better in almost every respect it is to date black men. "I'm not going to screw this up," she remembered thinking.
Sounds more like she could use a big Ital— okay, I'll not.
Julia McCarthy's big moment, meanwhile, came as she skated behind a wobbly Paul Leeming, a former Choate classmate whom she had reconnected with when a friend of hers temporarily became one of his roommates, at a party at the Prospect Park ice rink.
Though Mr. Leeming considers himself "the worst ice skater on the planet," he laced up his boots in an effort to spend time with her. He spent more time hanging on to her than hanging out with her.
"I thought to myself that if this guy was willing to try ice skating just to hang out with me, he must be pretty special," Ms. McCarthy said. "As he's floundering and flopping around out there, I'm thinking, ‘This is the guy I'm going to marry.' "
A lovely ending by writer Vincent M. Mallozzi, but let's be honest:
No one writes wedding announcement kickers quite like Rosalie R. Radomsky. This week's masterstroke comes in the announcement for Kate Fridkis and Simon Berring, who met on an online dating site — "'He was funnier than everyone else, but unattractive based on his picture,' said Ms. Fridkis, who went out with him anyway, explaining, 'I needed the practice'" — and whose relationship quickly escalated. This is how the announcement wraps up:
Among the flurry of e-mails - five times a day - in the following days, Ms. Fridkis sent him an article about a place in Salt Lake City known for pastrami burgers. The next thing she knew, he had booked two plane tickets for Salt Lake City that weekend.
"We got off the plane, we rented a car and went straight to the pastrami burger in Salt Lake City," she said.
But the pastrami burgers were beside the point.
The pastrami burgers were beside the point. R^3, you brilliant bat. (Oh, and speaking of brilliant bats: I pretty much want to model my life after groom Christopher Nagle's mother Paige, who "retired as the owner of an interior design firm in Bronxville and is now the chairwoman of Song Pipers, a music-therapy ensemble that performs for elderly people in Westchester County." Mi mi mi MI mi mi mi.)
Fridkis and Berring weren't the only couple who traveled for love of food (and each other.) Shannon Corliss and Gregory Wiener were introduced at a party by a friend who knew they'd both be able to speak the secret language of foodies. And indeed: when she mentioned her desire to dine at Spain's famous El Bulli, he was all casually like "yeah, I've been twice and I'm going again in July." (WTF?!) Anyway, you can probably guess how this one ends: with a satisfied burp.
Over the next two years, they traveled to Spain, Italy, France, England, Cambodia, Thailand, Israel, Peru and Japan. They sampled the native cuisines and explored the local food markets.
In September of last year, they became engaged, and in November, they celebrated - over a 37-course meal at El Bulli.
Last night for dinner I had Chips Ahoy! cookies, Wheat Thins, and a 2 liter bottle of seltzer. But then there's Cynthia Watters' new husband, George Shepherd, whose entire life has been a tasting menu:
The bridegroom is on the board of the Meridian Herald, a nonprofit group in Atlanta that works to preserve Southern sacred music traditions through performances. He graduated from Yale, summa cum laude, and received a law degree from Harvard, cum laude. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford. The bridegroom's previous three marriages ended in divorce.
OMG, dueling Googlers this weekend! Sarah Ellenbogen nee Wagman is a manager for strategic partnership development, while the Winklevossian Michael Samuel "is a computer scientist who writes software for Google in Mountain View, Calif. He concentrates on the prevention of hacking." The thought of these primates pounding away at computers reminds me: I'm pretty sure the infinite monkey theorem could result in the production of this sentence en route to Shakespeare:
He is also a playwright whose credits include ... "The War, the Horse, the Woman Done Wrong," in 2007 at the Newington-Cropsey Foundation amphitheater in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.
I always love when they list the whimsical works of creatives. Like for Lars. E. Hokanson, father of groom Jacob Hokanson: "The bridegroom's father is a freelance illustrator whose murals are in the theater of the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, NJ and who has also designed covers for The New Yorker." Isn't that the best? How dreary to be, like, an insurance salesman in comparison.
Quick programming side note! A redeye flight and some technical difficulties at the office prevented last week's Altarcations from making its strict Gawker deadline, but you can find the complete piece elsewhere by clicking here. It's a 2-4-1 Sunday! Warning: contains ice cream-eating anarchists, and also Sally Quinn.
Elsewhere this weekend, a Camp Trin Trin alum bagged a model; a "What Not To Wear" stylist got married, although I'm disappointed that there was no "Say Yes To The Dress" promotional tie-in; the 25-year old "owner and designer of Madame Mathilde, a jewelry and handbag company in New York" was married in Palm Beach Gardens; I can't hear the word "stevedore" without thinking about Ziggy Sobotka; the daughter of "the former chief executive of MozArt, Inc, a designer and manufacturer of girls' hair ornaments" must have had a fancy veil; and congratulations to Esther Lederman and Scott Gant, pictured in this week's official phLOLto. Orange steel!
This week's Faceoff:
Alexandra Danielle Linden and Dr. John Belletti
"The couple met during orientation at Columbia, from which each received an MBA": +7
The bride graduated from Amherst and received a Master of Public Administration from Harvard: +4
The groom graduated cum laude from Harvard and received a medical degree from Vanderbilt: +5
The groom works for McKinsey: +1
The bride's father is a renewable energy firm partner: +1
The bride's mother is a retired Goldman Sachs partner: +2
She is also a trustee and treasurer of the Collegiate School and "the financial adviser to the Prince of Wales Foundation in Washington": +2
The groom's father is a retired cardiologist: +1
The wedding took place at the Plaza: +1
TOTAL: 24
Katherine Diane Kinzler and Zachary David Clopton
"The bride and the bridegroom, both 29, met at Yale, from which they both graduated, magna cum laude": +13
The bride received a doctoral degree in psychology from Harvard and the groom received a law degree from Harvard, magna cum laude: +10
In 2006 she was a Fulbright scholar in Paris, "studying the developmental origins of social bias": +2
The groom received a master's in international relations from Cambridge: +1
"Judge Diane P. Wood of the Federal Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, for whom the bridegroom was a law clerk until August, officiated at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago": +1
The picture is angled such that they are literally looking down their noses at you and me: +2
TOTAL: 29