I Will Beg. I Will Plead. Whatever It Takes To Get Into The New York Times Wedding Announcements.

I have pontificated before about my odd fascination with the New York Times wedding announcements. I am not sure why I'm drawn to them; I am not sure why I was hooked on them long before I even imagined myself in any sort of situation involving marital bliss.

But they are more robust, better read and filled with far more fancier people than any other wedding announcement page in America, so in that sense they are something of a cultural institution. Some mock them, some obsess over them. And that's why I must be a part of them.

Every Sunday, I have my routine with the wedding pages. I scan for personal points of interest (my hometown, college and city). I scan for couples of interest (old gay men, inter-religious matches, vast age differences). And I scan names/pictures of those I might recognize.

On Sunday, my friends Keith and Jen--whose wedding I was in as both a groomsman AND as the official bubbles-hander-outer--made the cut. Shockingly, as the newspaper was passed around during the Sunday morning post-wedding brunch, I oozed with pride rather than bitter jealously. I swear on next Sunday's copy of the Times, I was happy for them.

That happiness is contingent, obviously, on us being in there in four weeks. And with a picture -- and none of them bride-only shots, neither.

We have pitched the Times hard. We sent along our flip-book invitation, a copy of the actual magazine when I proposed and a detailed summary of our relationship and familial pedigrees. The whole preparation process took like three days, so in case we don't get in (bite your tongue! godforbid! perish the thought! fingers-crossed!), here's our announcement:

Deborah A. Hurwitz and Matthew E. Katz are to be married on Sunday evening (August 31) by Rabbi Lee Friedlander in the courtyard of the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia, PA.

The bride, 27, is a senior art director for Gyro Worldwide, an advertising and marketing agency in Philadelphia. She graduated magna cum laude from The George Washington University. The bridegroom, 30, is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, covering Camden, NJ. He graduated from The George Washington University.

Although the couple went to the same college, they met later through friends. At the time, Mr. Katz was a news reporter at the Gannett-owned Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ, where he also wrote a nationally syndicated dating column. Distributed by Gannett to about 50 daily newspapers, it was called The Bachelor Pad, and it chronicled Mr. Katz’s dating life. (See mattkatz.net for back columns.)

Mr. Katz and Ms. Hurwitz became friends, and he told her he was interested in dating her. But she made it clear that she only wanted to be friends. So Mr. Katz began writing columns about wanting to date a friend (see two attached articles). Eventually, Ms. Hurwitz relented. And Mr. Katz began writing about that, too.

Mr. Katz chronicled the couple’s relationship in The Bachelor Pad for about two years. Although he wanted to propose in a way befitting the public, written nature of their relationship, he said he thought it would be too predictable to propose through the column.

Fortunately, just when he was ready to ask Ms. Hurwitz for her hand, the New Jersey Monthly magazine interviewed him for a profile because his column ran in a half-dozen daily newspapers in New Jersey. The magazine headlined the profile "Mr. Write." In a quoted passage in the last paragraph, he proposed. (See enclosed magazine.)

Ms. Hurwitz read the article in their apartment in Philadelphia, and when she got to this quote – “Deborah, will you marry me?”—Mr. Katz got on one knee. He now writes a blog about their engagement at engagedguy.blogspot.com.

The bride is the daughter of Ilene and David Hurwitz of Randolph, NJ. Her father retired as president of Allerton Enterprises and is a former vice president of Fisher Scientific, now Thermo Fisher Scientific. Her mother is an administrative assistant with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in Madison, NJ.

The bridegroom is the son of Roberta and Richard Katz of Roslyn, NY. His father is an independent insurance broker and retired as deputy director of the New York district office of the Food & Drug Administration. His mother retired as a New York City public school teacher after 32 years.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Turso Photography (this pic is not the one, unfortunately, that the Times got)