So did you REALLY get married?

You look up the number for the people in the picture and call them.

 

"May I speak to Mr. Jablome, please? First name Heywood."

 

Game over.

 

or you just require that one member of the staff be invited for the wedding announcement to run, cuz hey, free food

 

That's fine as long as they don't expect you to bring a gift.

 

Many years ago a daily in our city ran an engagement announcement about a former resident who had moved to the Cayman Islands for reasons unknown who was supposeldy marrying the daughter of the head of some African nation. His friend?? who gave the announcement to the paper got the photo of the princess out of National Geographic. The paper did check with the guy who assured the person calling that he had been asked by his friend in the Caymans to place the announcement on his behalf. It ran right at the top of the Saturday page full of wedding and engagement announcements. Needless to say it generated plenty of calls as the guy in the Caymans was just the type who would have got engaged to someone he didn't know very long and not tell his friends.

 

They really didn't have to check when Dr. J and I got married. Half the newsroom was in attendance at the reception when the disco ball caught on fire and the other half heard it when it went over the police scanner.

Verified.

 

Well played. To give a more serious answer, I think it is more of a thing for the parents, so they can brag about their kids getting married. I didn't even realize there had been a marriage announcement for my wife and I until somebody mentioned it the day of the wedding.

 

Tell that to my former publisher, who freaked out when a little weekly showed up in one of the corners of our community and started doing shopper-type news. He'd haul us into meetings about how to "improve" our paper, which included a weekly diatribe about us getting "scooped" on wedding announcements because our lifestyle page came out a day after the other rag came out.

Me: "I don't think anyone really cares what day the wedding announcements came out when we've got the story on the school board meeting and the basketball game three days before they do."
Him: "They're scooping us. We have to stop this!!!!"

Wasn't too long before I was scooping updated copies of my resume out of the printer.

 

You're costing them honeymoon scholarships, dammit!

 

You only write about them when they get divorced!