Giving gifts to wedding guests is still a common tradition. A 2023 study by the Knot showed that 52 percent of nearly 10,000 couples who were surveyed handed out wedding favors. But there’s now a new spin on the custom. Couples are creating gifting suites, lounges and tables, where guests can choose gifts to take…
Ms. Zappone says she has observed a shift toward shorter guest lists since the start of the pandemic. “I always say invite who you love and want to hang out with and share your moments,” she said, “and save the extra guest-count money for the things that matter to you.” Those savings could go to…
The objective of alumni weekend for Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, based in Wingdale, N.Y., is “to create Jewish marriages and matches,” said Anna Claire Bessendorf, a former camper. And indeed, that’s how it worked out for her. Ms. Bessendorf, who was 22 then, attended the reunion over Labor Day weekend in 2015, and on…
While scrolling on the dating app Hinge, a college friend of Alexis Lane Brugger’s came across Timothy Wang’s profile and instantly thought that she had found the perfect match, not for herself, but for her friend Ms. Brugger. So, she sent him a direct message. On Sept. 12, 2020, Mr. Wang, 27, received an unexpected…
When Cody Bennett Austrie began his freshman year of high school in 2007, an older classmate caught his eye. Stephanie Winifred Brooks was a junior, and as the alphabet gods would have it, her locker was a few spaces over from his. “I don’t know whether it was just the way she dressed, how pretty…
Malika Rose Andrews has established herself as a well-known presence in broadcast sports journalism, so it may be hard to believe that her first job out of college was merely seven years ago, in 2017. And, in November of that same year, she met fellow N.B.A. journalist David Christopher McMenamin. On Aug. 24, the two…
Selena Evelyn Coppock has been reading The New York Times Weddings section since she was about 12. “It all seemed so exciting and glamorous to a girl growing up outside of Boston,” Ms. Coppock said. After moving to New York in 2006, her fascination with the Vows section and the couples featured in it each…
In June, The New York Times published a list of hot spots in New York to meet people. Many people are longing for organic, in-person connections, but they don’t necessarily know where to go. The summertime in New York is a particularly fun and flirty season, when many people seem to be more open to…
“There is NO obligation to come if you can’t!” part of the message read. Shared with a group of friends, the text was not an invitation to a happy hour, a casual group hang or a weekend pickleball meet-up. It was for a wedding. Sharing the relevant information about their wedding celebration over a series…
Aspen Matis said she was turned off by Daniel Jordan Weingart after he stayed with her for a week in October 2016. The two had never met before. Ms. Matis, now 34, lived in a 350-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and was taking undergraduate classes at Columbia. “I had just gotten divorced and…