Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 5.13: Cincinnati Weds
Even in these dark days, as an anxious nation awaits the latest dispatch from the associate salary wars, the wedding machine grinds on. We salute the brave couples who choose to go ahead with their ceremonies in the face of all this uncertainty -- after all, how crushing would it be to return from your honeymoon and find your employer on someone's List of Shame!
Honorable mention this week goes to this couple. (The father of the bride, William Barr, was once Attorney General under George H.W. Bush.) Unfortunately, those two did not make the cut. Here are the lucky lovebirds who did:
1. Michele Molfetta and Carolyn Wolpert
More on this week's couples, after the jump.
1. Michele Molfetta and Carolyn Wolpert
(Buy them a spice rack.)
The Case:
- LEWW is thrilled to shine the spotlight on the first same-sex couple of our tenure!
- Michele and Carolyn met on the job, at the New York City Law Department's Office of the Corporation Counsel. This sounds like a monumentally boring place to work. Thumbs-up to these two for giving their co-workers something to gossip about.
- They got married at a Martha Clara Vineyards. We adore vineyard weddings, and how cute that they chose a place with two girly names!
The Case Against:
- The brides' resumes are not as strong as we typically like to see in this space. Michele went to SUNY Stony Brook and received her JD from Touro College; Carolyn went to Fordham and Georgetown Law. These credentials are certainly nothing to be ashamed of; they're just not going to win you top honors in the prestige-derby that is the New York Times weddings column.
2. Eliza Harrington and Minor Myers III
(Buy them a grapefruit knife.)
The Case:
- Plenty of Ivy League stuff here! Minor went to Connecticut College and Yale Law School; Eliza went to Harvard and received her MD from the University of Rochester.
- They had an Article III officiant: Judge Peter W. Hall of the Second Circuit.
- Minor is member of the Society of the Cincinnati, "widely considered to be one of the most prestigious and sought-after accomplishments in the hereditary society community." (The big strand of DNA in the corner of that website is a nice touch, just in case you peons weren't clear on the "hereditary" aspect.)
The Case Against:
- It looks like the new Mr. and Mrs. will be living apart for a while. He's leaving Debevoise to teach at Brooklyn Law School, and she's finishing her pediatrics residency in Rochester.
- No picture. However, we attended law school with the groom, and we'll testify that Minor is a major hottie! (You can feast your eyes on Minor and his equally handsome brother here.) We weren't able to find a picture of Eliza, but we can't imagine a discerning gent like Minor breeding with anyone less than an aesthetic equal. LEWW hereby pronounces Eliza ravishing, sight unseen!
3. Jennifer Merzon and Christopher Evans
(Buy them a swivel peeler.)
The Case:
- The couple met during law school at Duke. She has an undergrad degree from Dartmouth; he was summa at Bowdoin. Now she's at O'Melveny & Myers and he's at Quinn Emanuel.
- These two aren't going down to Team Harrington-Myers without a fight. They hauled out two ministers for their ceremony, one of whom was the Right Reverend Andrew St. John, a vicar. Merely the word "vicar" evokes a pleasant frisson of WASPy privilege. Major points here.
- They have a nice picture. (LEWW apologizes for the large crease appearing across Jennifer's face; our paper got mangled on the way home from Starbucks.) The groom looks like a less-neurotic Cameron Frye ("When Cameron was in Egypt's land... let my Cameron go!") And we like Jennifer's pearls.
The Case Against:
- The most popular baby names list was just updated, giving us more fodder for one of our favorite topics: name fads. Don't get us wrong: We know many, many, many lovely Jennifers -- but that's just the point. Total insanity seized parents of baby girls in the 1970s, propelling Jennifer to the number-one spot on the names list for fifteen straight years (1970-84). To the future parents out there thinking that Olivia, Ava, and Isabella sound cute and "fresh": No. A little research is all it takes to prevent your princess from having to go by her last initial throughout elementary school. (Note: Boys' names are different. We'll address this in a future column.)
- We love Dukies, but we have some reservations about Duke grad students as basketball fans. We won't share the hard numbers on how many January and February nights of LEWW's undergrad years were spent in a tent; our parents could be reading this, and they were paying for the warm, empty dorm room. But let's just say that Duke undergrads aren't hugely impressed by the grad students' contrived weekend camp-out "experience" in some remote parking lot in September. Bottom line: We urge people to follow LEWW's advice and form a sports loyalty during their undergrad years rather than jumping on a bandwagon in law school.
The Verdict:
This one was close. We were going to weasel out and flip a coin, but then we saw George Washington's head on the quarter and it hit us like a bolt of lightning: Washington was the first president -- of the Society of the Cincinnati! Congratulations, Team Harrington-Myers!
(32) Comments
Minor is so not a hottie, at least from the looks of that picture.
YUK!!! You think the Myers brothers are cutties??!!!!! GET YOUR EYES CHECKED!!!
Brilliant as always! Good job LEWW!
I'll agree with LEWW...the Myers brothers are cute in that law-geeky way.
I am picturing "Society of Cincinnati" meetings as a bunch of people wearing zoobahs (sp?) gathered in a parking lot, sampling different kinds of chili.
Anybody get married in a church by a priest anymore? (Episcopal doesn't count, as I can count the # of practicing Episcopalians in this country these days on two hands.)
Number 1 in teamocil.
Getting married in a church by a priest is so passe! A3 officiants are the way to go.
Inbreeding will soon be the downfall of the Society of Cincinnati
As one of the 100,000,000 Jennifers born in the 1970s, I have to agree with you about the excessively common name problem. I also have a creeping suspicion that the fad was due to that movie Love Story (1970), which is a sappy piece of crap. The only upside is that I have total Google anonymity--when you google my name you don't get anything that's actually about me until page 10 or so.
But generally having the same name as everyone is quite annoying! Use the social security administration website, people! Or NameWizard on iVillage, which has a cool interactive graph feature.
Geene Parmesan's the name. Not facing the excessively common name problem is my game.
Minor is a complete tool. Or, perhaps I should say a major tool.
Derek Smith is hot though, and not a douche.
I was at the Michele Molfetta and Carolyn Wolpert ceremony. It was very nice. That same day a bumble bee and flower renewed their partnership. Also, a cat married a bear, which shows how truly far we've come as a society.
Ohmygod. Minor a hottie? He's a 2 and only because he's not a hunchback (no offense to hunchbacks). Can't you find any football players? Any guys we'd like to run our hands over and not be worried they'd break? You know guys we'd really like to, well, "crown." Legally speaking, that is.
Right Reverend is the title for an Episcopal bishop. So it was a bishop serving as a vicar.
And how can belonging to a hereditary society be an accomplishment? Besides, virtually every wasp could belong to Cincinnati if they bothered to do the research.
12:40, you're an ass.
LEWW, I'm the person (one of the people?) who put in a request for coverage of same-sex couples. As a gay reader, I feel much more enthusiastic of this segment knowing that prestigious same-sex partnerships will receive equal cosnideration with prestigious opposite-sex partnerships. I saw the Molfetta-Wolpert wedding announcement in the Times and wondered if you'd cover it, but feared their credentials weren't sparkly enough. I appreciate the nod to same-sex nonetheless, and here's hoping that same-sex couples bring the prestige in future. :)
12:40, you're an ass.
LEWW, I'm the person (one of the people?) who put in a request for coverage of same-sex couples. As a gay reader, I feel much more enthusiastic of this segment knowing that prestigious same-sex partnerships will receive equal consideration with prestigious opposite-sex partnerships. I saw the Molfetta-Wolpert wedding announcement in the Times and wondered if you'd cover it, but feared their credentials weren't sparkly enough. I appreciate the nod to same-sex nonetheless, and here's hoping that same-sex couples bring the prestige in future. :)
12:40 - go fuck yourself.
"Michele and Carolyn met on the job, at the New York City Law Department's Office of the Corporation Counsel. This sounds like a monumentally boring place to work."
You either don't have a clue what Corp Counsel does or you have a very odd idea of what interesting work is.
I went to college with Eliza Harrington, and she was extremely attractive. I assume she still is.
If NY's Corp. Counsel is anything like DC's, it should be left off one's resume before applying to other places. Better to have to explain a 5 year gap in your employment than getting tainted as having worked there.
My hampster wife and I are very offended by your rudeness.
Good day to you she-males. Good day!
what about this one?
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05132007/entertainment/weddings/lee__31__and_caceres__30_weddings_larisa_danczuk.htm
I think that photo is from Glamour Shots by Deb.
12:40-Hilarious!!!
4:49, doesn't that Asian lawyer work at Debevoise?
Laurie, how could you have missed this???????
Eliza is, er, gorgeous. Here she is with Minor: http://www.flickr.com/photos/debbieweil/501622395/in/set-72157600223008607/
She very attractive, in the non-traditional sense. I'm sure plenty of people would think she's pretty. I don't know of any such people, but theyt must exist.
She's very attractive, in the non-traditional sense. I'm sure plenty of people would think she's pretty. I don't know of any such people, but theyt must exist.
Michele Molfetta and Carolyn Wolpert - I am a friend of the couple and will be helping them conceive through natural insemination. What a happy family they will have.
Duke grad students are lame basketball fans. The sixty year olds are often louder than them.
Okay so Eliza and Minor- not necessarily good looking people, but you've got to figure- there weren't too many gunners in your 1L class or at the med school across the street- who had time to gun for anything else, no?