The Bride Wore Vera Wang, The Groom Wore Shorts /

A couple of weeks ago, the NYT “Vows” section featured the story of Jennifer Keen and Paul Sousa, an atypical couple for the “Weddings and Celebrations” pages: they are both recovering addicts and community college students; in the photo she wears a wedding dress. He’s wearing shorts.

Yesterday, in the Times’ Public Editor section, Clark Hoyt defended the story against a contingent of readers who “regarded the weddings pages as a place for upstanding people with good educations who come from good families” and who thought these rapscallions didn’t fit in.

Hoyt mentions “Weddings of the Times” as a recent parody of the section. But we’re wondering if he got the cause and effect right. Would it be too presumptuous to say that “Weddings of the Times” caused this upheaval in the NYT Weddings Pages by opening up a Pandora’s box of imaginary eccentric couples who somehow infiltrated the zeitgeist and in turn allowed some real misfits to slip into the actual NYT?

Think about it.