If your weekends consist of devouring the weddings section of The New York Times, Cate Doty's Mergers and Acquisitions needs to be on your TBR list.” —Marie Claire
“Navigating the world of weddings can’t be easy, but Cate handles it fearlessly with to-the-point sass in this eye-opening expose.”
—Jen Lancaster, author of Bitter Is the New Black
MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages by Cate Doty is a compulsively readable behind-the-scenes debut memoir that takes readers inside the weddings section of The New York Times—the good, bad, and just plain weird—through the eyes of a young reporter just as she's falling in love herself.
Cate Doty talks about:
· Her experience at The New York Times
· How The New York Times wedding section has endured and why it is still so coveted
· Her predictions on changes we might foresee in the wedding industry post-pandemic
· Advice she would give someone planning their wedding for the first time
Growing up in the south, where tradition reigns supreme, Cate Doty thought about weddings…a lot. She catered for them, she attended many, she imagined her own. So, when she moved to New York City in pursuit of love—and to write for The New York Times—she finds her natural home in the weddings section, a first step to her own happily-ever-after, surely. Soon Cate is thrown into the cutthroat world of metropolitan society pages, experiencing the lengths couples go to have their announcements accepted and the lengths the writers go in fact-checking their stories; the surprising, status signaling details that matter most to brides and grooms; and the politics of the paper at a time of vast cultural and industry changes.
Reporting weekly on couples whose relationships seem enviable—or eye-roll worthy—and dealing with last-minute snafus, Cate is surrounded by love, or what we’re told to believe is love. But when she starts to take the leap herself, she begins to ask her own questions about what it means to truly commit…
Warm, witty, and keenly observed, MERGERS AND ACQUISITONS is an enthralling dive into one of society’s most esteemed institutions, its creators and subjects, and a young woman’s coming-of-age.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cate Doty is a writer and a former editor at The New York Times, where she worked for nearly 15 years, including as a wedding announcements writer, presidential campaign reporter, and a senior staff editor on the Food desk. She occasionally teaches journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which she graduated, and lives in North Carolina with her family.
