The Ten-Year Anniversary of the Time My Wedding Announcement Was Not Accepted by the Paper of Record

by Dan Shanoff

Margery Miller and Dan Shanoff

Margery Ilana Miller and Daniel Shanoff are to be married this evening1 at The Plantation at Amelia Island, Florida. Rabbi David Kaiman is to officiate.2

1. Ten years ago today. You see: This notice was submitted to the New York Times for inclusion in its Sunday Styles “Weddings” sub-section for October 3, 2004. After not hearing anything for weeks/months leading up to the scheduled day, I opened the paper that morning earnestly hoping for the best, but instead receiving a wedding present of inexplicable rejection, which is clearly an off-registry gift.

2. So nice!

Mrs. Shanoff, 30, is a third-year law student at Fordham, where she is a Senior Notes and Articles Editor of the Law Review. She will begin working next fall as an associate at the law firm of Davis, Polk and Wardwell3 in New York.4 She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.

3. After clerking for a judge (a NYT Wedding staple detail), she eventually left the firm for a smaller one, then left that firm for a quasi-governmental regulatory group. Still a lawyer, though.

4. If we didn’t live in New York at the time we were getting married, I wouldn’t have even bothered submitting the announcement. We eventually moved out, as so many couples who make the Weddings cut inevitably do, because of kids, exhaustion or a combination.

The bride’s parents, Suzy and Gary Miller, live in Gainesville, Florida.5 Her father is co-founder and executive vice-president of research and development of Exactech, a medical-devices company in Gainesville. Her mother, a retired teacher, is a volunteer at the Harn Museum of Art and Congregation B’Nai Israel in Gainesville.

5. Go Gators.

Mr. Shanoff, who is known as Dan, writes the “Daily Quickie,” a column for ESPN.com.6 He graduated from Northwestern University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.7

6. That ended in 2006, followed by eponymous blogging, consulting, “writing that screenplay” (optioned, never made), joining a start-up, more consulting, launching an antecedent to the hot news start-up “Syria Deeply” all about Tim Tebow, then founding my startup, which was later absorbed by a big media company, where I still work today. But at the time I submitted the announcement, I was confident that “ESPN columnist” had enough media-ish cachet that it had to help.

7. At this point, we’ve cleared at least double-digits on Katie Baker’s “NUPTIALS” NYT Wedding announcement scorecard, just the “U” section. I’m not saying that to boast; I’m saying that to help me discern what might have disqualified our announcement from publication. (It was Northwestern, wasn’t it? Some Styles editor clearly went to Columbia.)

The bridegroom, 31, is a son of Carolyn and Barry Shanoff of Bethesda, Maryland.8 His mother directs consumer and business education at the Federal Trade Commission.9 His father is a partner at Knopf & Brown, a law firm in Rockville, Maryland.10

8. Come home, Kevin Durant!

9. Retired this past Tuesday!

10. It might have ended here. It could’ve ended here. Many Weddings entries present the just-the-facts basics and that would have been enough. But what’s the harm in a little backstory? It’s not like I was asking for the “Lois Smith Brady treatment.” (That said: LSB would have had a great time at our wedding — we passed around these ridiculously good mini lamb chops and had an outrageously talented band and our first dance was to Stevie Wonder’s lovely “I Believe,” although in retrospect, I think I would have cut off the song halfway only to have the band jump into “Crazy In Love,” ending with me standing with the band doing a surprisingly effective and not-at-all-awkward job with the Jay parts while Margery played Bey and, on the extra-large dance floor, Lois Smith Brady was pulled into some kind of hustle step by my father, which would have clearly been the Vows lead.)

In the summer of 2001, shortly after a first date with Mrs. Shanoff arranged by a mutual friend,11 Mr. Shanoff went abroad for a three-week vacation in Europe. After a week of receiving his enthusiastic email reports, Mrs. Shanoff spontaneously offered to join him in northwest Italy, a proposal he eagerly accepted.

11. That’s a euphemism for “blind date.” All I can say is that your mutual friend better have a solid existing track record. It’s like Uber for Shidduchs: If their fix-up success wouldn’t rate at least 4.5 out of 5 stars from the previous couples involved, skip the match-making and stick with Netflix that night.

“How could I say no to such a bold, romantic gesture?” he explained.12

12. As recounted in The Awl, 12/30/09. Needless to say, the quote-crux of the story — “How cheap is cheap?” — didn’t make the version submitted to the Times. Although in retrospect, maybe if it had been included, our submission would have found more favor. Probably not.

The pair enjoyed five days touring Venice and Cinque Terre. “Such an intense experience was like 100 dates,” Mr. Shanoff remembered.

“It was Italy,” Mrs. Shanoff said. “Of course we fell in love.”13

13. Seriously, Margery is fearless and endearing and kind and full of joy, all of which anyone can tell from that single quote, let alone being married to her for 10 years. How did they turn down this listing?! (This final venting represents my closure. [Ed note: ARE YOU SURE])

When they returned stateside, they maintained a “mid-distance” relationship between Boston and New York during Mr. Shanoff’s final year of business school, before he moved back to Manhattan after graduating.14

14. We left Manhattan a year later, Brooklyn a few years after that with two kids, and now we live in the DC suburbs with three, happily still married (still happily married?) and celebrating our 10th anniversary tonight in the most romantic way possible — Yom Kippur services. (Ask any Jewish person: “Kol Nidre” is the least seductive slow jam ever.) In the end, I wasn’t looking for a “Vows” column — just an overly public, admittedly superficial, Times-stamped recognition of the biggest moment of our lives. It clearly nagged at me enough over the past decade to finally see it published today. You win, Lois Smith Brady.

Dan Shanoff writes for USA Today Sports. Photo by Michael Mandiberg.