with this ring II

Another long meeting story in Sunday’s NYTimes wedding announcements

The couple met in 2004 at a Halloween party at a pub on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Mr. Donohue was one of a half-dozen men who dressed as characters from Roger Hargreaves’s "Mr. Men and Little Miss" children’s book series. Mr. Donohue wore an orange suit, the signature color of his character, Mr. Tickle. He had stapled extra long sleeves to the suit so that he would have Mr. Tickle’s tentaclelike arms.

Ms. Cody knew one of the men in the group, Christopher Ahern, who was wearing a yellow suit, the signature color of Mr. Skinny. She asked him who had come up with the idea for the costumes, and he replied that it was his longtime friend Mr. Donahue.

“I thought the idea was extremely creative,” said Ms. Cody, who had improvised a doctor’s costume with the last-minute purchase of a lab coat, and scrubs and a stethoscope borrowed from her roommate, a nurse.

Ms. Cody struck up a conversation with Mr. Donahue and found the man in the orange suit to be “creative, confident in his skin, unpretentious.”

“She came right up and started talking,” Mr. Donohue remembered. “She was funny, honest.”

They spoke until the wee hours, when the party ended.

As I was typing the entry I thought I should have been calling him Mr. Tickle rather than Mr. Donohue; try it on your keyboard, it’s much easier to type. Not only would the finger stretches be easier, but if I know he’s Mr. Tickle based on the long-winded announcement, shouldn’t I just call him Mr. Tickle? Wasn’t that the point? Shouldn’t I call them Mr. and Mrs. Tickle? Or at least Mr. and Mrs. Cody-Tickle. And it's cool to work 'tentacle' into a wedding announcement...odds? I thought the 'when the party ended' was a bit much...as they do.

Mr. Redd, 45, is the founder and chief executive of the Project Management Resource Group, an engineering management consulting firm in New York. He is also a baritone whose appearances have included “Porgy and Bess” with the New York City Opera.

The thing that caught my eye was the baritone. I’m completely void of talent, and anyone who performs with the New York City Opera is amazing to me, but do I need to know this? “Hey X, we got an invitation to the wedding of that baritone guy from the ‘Porgy and Bess’ show. Are we going?” I imagine a response from across rooms declaring that unless it was the alto or harmony guy (I have NO musical terminology skills), we aren’t going. It strikes me that my wedding announcement should include the fact that I CAN’T sing. “Married today at the church, can’t carry a tune in a bucket…”

About half the announcements have photos of the happy couple, and I do wish them all the luck. Lord knows my marriage skills are questionable. But I can’t figure out the photo of just the bride. I’m thinking I should turn the page to see the “wasn’t present for school picture day” laid across the silhouette of some guy.

This week was the first announcements I’d seen that had same-sex marriages (I said it) of both sexes. Wait. Girls and boys. Wait. You know what I mean. I’ve noticed that the announcements with same-sex gals always seem to say “Ms. Debbie Jones (above left)”, but the same-sex guys don’t give the “above left” mapping. I tried to sort out who was who but came up empty.

And I love that Mr. William Mason’s father is “the national accounts manager at Tootsie Roll Industries of Chicago…” That is what life’s about, working at Tootsie Roll. Sweet.

T.