The Chilean Ski Slopes Are Alive with the Sound of Music
Each week, the Weddings and Celebrations section of the Sunday 'New York Times' features twos becoming ones and halves becoming wholes and reminds you how poor/lonely/lost you are; to help, we score them! Your host is chronic bouquet-catcher and numerologist Phyllis Nefler.
I often wonder how my dad will handle it if some brave soul asks him for my pasty hand in marriage. See, I feel like he'll kind of half-nod silently and go back to reading his Bjorn Borg tennis memoir and my prince will be like so um, is that a yes, Mister Nefler? and he won't respond because he can't hear anything over the din of the Stevie Wonder he's got looped on repeat. I know this because I'm at my parents' house and last night I asked whether I could get an advance on my birthday ca$h and that was basically what happened.
Poor Richard Jago. He had it just as bad. You know how the political spectrum is not a line but really more of a circle, so that fascists and socialists are secretly the same animal? This was like that. Completely opposite fatherly reaction and yet identical awkwardness:
"When informed of Mr. Jago's intentions, Mr. Postles threw his drink on the lawn, started yelling in celebration and hugging his future son-in-law before running into the house and shouting the good news to his wife.
Ms. Postles, who had been upstairs flossing her teeth, heard the commotion and thought something was wrong. Dental floss in hand, she zipped down the stairs."
God, parents ruin lives! It gets worse: the tearstained dad then TELLS HER EVERYTHING, of course Jago doesn't have the ring with him because, you know, he WASN'T PLANNING TO PROPOSE THAT NIGHT, and the scene closes with the couple slumped next to each other on the couch "like seventh graders" wondering if this means they like each other or like each other.
Something tells me that world famous economist Jeffrey D. Sachs was way more composed during the lead up to his daughter Lisa's engagement, you know?
Elsewhere this weekend, the founder of the company that makes those pastel ties adorned with little renderings of lacrosse sticks and Nantucket got hitched, a dude negged his girlfriend but predictably got her back, some NYC natives proved that where you go to kindergarten really does matter, and a ceremony was "officiated at the home of Anderson Cooper, a friend of the couple."
Guess where else a ceremony was officiated? Oh, just at "Our Lady of Peace, a chapel on the von Trapp estate in Stowe." Yes, those von Trapps.
Sam von Trapp, grandson of the melodious Maria and Baron, met Elisa Sepulveda at the Portillo ski resort in Chile, which her stepfather owns. A ski instructor in Aspen and Portillo for ages, von Trapp also moonlighted as a Ralph Lauren model and was featured as one of America's Top 50 Bachelors in People Magazine in 2001. (I'm trying so hard not to use the phrase "lonely goatherd" right now, you guys.) The proposal took place in Monterey "while floating in kayaks over a calm ocean among sea otters and dolphins." These are a few of their favorite things...
We now turn to our weekly Intern Alexis Scoring System Showdown. This week, in honor of Archie choosing Veronica over Betty, I bring you a Battle of the Brunettes.
Ashley Lynn and Kenneth Leonczyk Jr.
• The couple met at Yale Law (+7) where she also got her BA and a masters in African Studies (+4) and where he received a master's in religion (+4) and a certificate, whatever that means, in Anglican studies: +15
• Both to become law firm types: +5
• Bride's father is "of Greenwich" and her mother is the "secretary of the board of the Friends of the Bermuda College Library": +2
• The "retired Anglican bishop of Bermuda" performed the ceremony: +2
• The groom is "an Episcopal priest who is also the canon theologian to the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Kadugli Nuba Mountains in Sudan": this one is not explicitly covered in the scoring bylaws, and I'm not entirely sure what it even means, but I'm awarding a +5. God agrees.
Total: +29
Jessica Hertz and Christopher Angell
• "The bride and bridegroom met at Harvard, from which they both graduated, she cum laude and he magna cum laude": +10
• More law people: +5
• Bride has a law degree (+1) while groom "is pursuing a law degree at Columbia and a master's degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins": +4, and I wonder if he ever sits with Joe Biden on the Amtrak?
• Bride is keeping her name: -1
• Groom's parents don't mess around. Mom is vice chairwoman of the board of WNYC Radio (+1), dad a law partners and trustee of Johns Hopkins (+1) as well as director of the Henry Street Settlement (+1); both parents are on the board of the Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins (+2) "of which the bridegroom's father is the president": +7
• "JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR … OFFICIATED AT THE METROPOLITAN CLUB OF NEW YORK": +50 Drudge Sirens
Total: Doesn't matter; in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld Couple #2 as the winner.