In the comments of my wedding etiquette post, Philip pointed out this tribute by Andrew Cohen, who’s in love with a woman marrying another man. He published it on her wedding day:
On Her Wedding Day, Saying the Things Left Unsaid
Then Sarah mentioned that Lizzie Skurnick had written a response column:
How Not to Congratulate Your Ex on Her Wedding Day
If I were the bride, I would have been less than flattered. But I’m curious about what you guys think. Selfish creep, or hopeless romantic?
Mighty Girl 
Disgusting, creepy, self-absorbed weirdo.
The decent thing to do, when the One Who Got Away gets married, is to congratulate her PRIVATELY and then fade quietly away. Don’t make a spectacle of yourself by writing a column about how much you’re still in love with her, effectively overshadowing her wedding day and making everything all about you. She’s marrying somebody else. Get over it. Move on. Mourn your loss in private.
LikeLike
When I read these pieces last week I had the same thought- if I were the bride, I’d be cringing. It seems a good rule of thumb, wedding etiquette-wise, to try to avoid that which might make the bride cringe.
LikeLike
How utterly self-absorbed. Having been on the receiving end of such rubbish myself (albeit in private, and varying wildly from “romantic” to downright vicious) this is simply meant to hurt. It makes my skin crawl.
LikeLike
Mr. Cohen’s public lament is just flat out tacky. He should have skipped the column and drunk-dialed her instead. Pathetic!
LikeLike
Simply put…I would have been pissed if I was that bride.
LikeLike
I found myself loving and hating parts of both these columns. I feel that he was being heartfelt and genuine, but at the same time very selfish. I have no idea how I would have reacted on my wedding day if that had happened to me.
As for Lizzie’s response – I found her to sound very bitter and condescending. I almost said out loud while reading, “Give the guy a break.” But she makes valid points – especially her Wedding point. I do agree that he should NOT have done this on his ex’s wedding day.
LikeLike
I’m not sure I could add anything to Molly’s comment. Unbelievably selfish but at least you can tell from this piece why she’s not marrying him.
LikeLike
he’s trying to lay a guilt trip on her.
LikeLike
Selfish creep. He had a response to Lizzie’s response too, and he was a jerk. (To put it lightly.)
http://jezebel.com/5597755/self+absorbed-columnist-masters-redefines-the-art-of-crap-emails?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+jezebel%2Ffull+%28Jezebel%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
LikeLike
Egads! If I was this bride I’d be breathing a sigh of relief. Honey, you dogged a bullet there!
LikeLike
C.R.E.E.P.Y. I would wonder why in the world he hadn’t moved on. And I would be angry that he felt as though he could lay claim to me in a public arena. Eww. Just Ew. I’ll bet he has a clammy, limp handshake.
LikeLike
I just have to add my voice to the choir and shout CUH-REEEPY! This Just Isn’t Done. If he had to say this to his ex, he could have said it in private and long before her wedding day. Had I been in the bride’s slippers, I would have wanted to melt into a puddle and die.
The following had me in stitches: “I humbly submit that his wedding day appreciation is in fact the equivalent of Andrew Cohen running into the church and yelling, ‘Andrew! ‘” Lizzie Skurnik for Queen of the Universe!
LikeLike
definitely creepy. and how sad–what are the chances that this guy’s column was the topic of more than one conversation during the (HER) wedding???
LikeLike
Icky…just icky all around. Public declarations of such private feelings are ill-advised, especially if there is no chance of reciprocation. Although I’d totally watch the rom-com where Andy & Lizzie wind up together.
LikeLike
That letter makes him seem so totally, totally self-absorbed and sad.
LikeLike
He doesn’t want to give up gracefully, he wants to brand her forever as “his” (once) — ugh. Only a narcissistic fool would send a bride a valentine on her wedding day. But to publish it? A narcissistic NUT. Shame on him.
LikeLike
When I first read his column, I thought, “He sounds overwrought and pathetic, and this is totally inappropriate, but he means well.” Then I read Lizzie’s and I have to admit, she’s persuasive. But the point of hers that is most compelling and at the same time most unfair is the comparison to the Bradbury story. I think most people think about love — especially love that’s ended — in terms of how it changes them or makes them feel. I don’t know anyone who describes their loved one as a list of accomplishments. That’s the stuff of crushes.
LikeLike
Okay, I’m going to represent the tiny minority that doesn’t think this is creepy (that’s not to say that it is romantic). He wasn’t trying to get her to leave her new husband and come back to him–he was trying to say goodbye. That’s not creepy; it’s sad.
However, I do take issue with the terrible writing in this article. It drips with cliches. He even says at one point, “I want to thank her for– it’s now such a cliché that I’m almost embarrassed to write it — making me want to be a better man.” He even used the term (in all seriousness), “one brief, shining moment.” THAT’S what’s gross to me. It’s possible to talk about love without employing every cliche in the book. How the hell did this get published?
LikeLike
Andrew Cohen is a narcissistic jerk and Lizzie Skurnick is a meddling shrew.
I’d pay good money to see THAT reality show.
LikeLike
Well. . .I don’t know about all that, but I think I come down on the side of creepy. It’s so clearly working out his own . . .um, baggage. Like exhibitionist therapy or something.
I have a different wedding-related question from my very own life today. My husband has bunches of cousins who live far away and whom I’ve never met. We keep getting invited to their weddings (which are far away and to which we are not going to go), but the invitations don’t come from the bride or groom. They’re from the parents. “Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so request the pleasure of your attendance. . ..” Etc. My question: beyond RSVP-ing and sending a gift and note to the bride c/o the parent’s address, do I have to also reply to the parents? I’ve been sending short congratulatory notes along the lines of thanks v. much for the invitation, so sorry we can’t make this festive occasion, we’ll be thinking of you. Needed? Not? Weird? I really don’t know.
LikeLike
I’m hoping that she didn’t hear about it until after the wedding (if at all) – and that if she did, she and her bridesmaids had fun mercilessly mocking his foibles.
The only part I thought was sweet was that he mentioned that she was good to his son – that’s a nice thing to recognize – but why you’d do it in a nationally published column, I can’t imagine.
And the part about the guilt and sadness, I’d have to say “She’s just not that into you.”
LikeLike
Selfish creep. 🙂 Unbelievable, really. Okay, no, believable, but still infuriating.
LikeLike
whether or not he had the purest of intentions, his passive-aggressive “gift” should have been shared in private. I would have been one very confused and angry bride. imagine being forced on your wedding day (!) to take a trip down memory lane, which would undoubtedly create an unpalatable emotional cocktail of discomfort, compassion, pity, and–I hope–relief.
Cohen, I am truly sorry for your loss and pain, but save it for your therapist or take it offline. this was so very tactless and disrespectful. 😦
LikeLike
Yeah, let’s file that under, “Not ok.” I hope no one sent her that link till she was *back* from her honeymoon.
Also, when he got to “women of a certain age in New York who have chosen their careers…” that’s what we call a RED FLAG and also a DOUBLE STANDARD. I believe the gentleman writer is single (I hope he is, considering)? And has a career? But it’s ok for him and not admirable for said women? I’ve known many career women of a certain age in New York. They are brave and strong and have dodged many bullets that sound a whole lot like this…
LikeLike
I read his first and thought, Sweet, he’s trying to let go and telling the world, but She makes a bunch of great points. Bad Bad etiquette. He should have wrote it for himself and never hit Publish.
I’m going to have to come down the side of Creepy.
In reading his response to her, he’s just mean. He got to say his piece to the world so why can’t she comment. It was made public (by him) after all. Why is she a shrew? Grow up. No wonder she left.
LikeLike
Lest Lizzie Skurnick’s column insinuate that this kind of awkwardness is unique to men, I share this: I got a card in the mail the day before my commitment ceremony from a girl I dated for four years and had not spoken to in the four years after the breakup. It contained an apology for sleeping with my best friend and best wishes for the rest of my life. The address was in another person’s handwriting and there was no return address (had I known who the card was from, I’d have thrown it away unopened).
When this ex and I reconnected recently on facebook and I told her how angry that had made me, she told me that (1) she didn’t know her friends had sent it (um, how did they get my mailing address?) and that she didn’t know I was getting married that week (yeah right!).
So let’s not blame men only. Ex girlfriends can be just as bad.
LikeLike
Creepy. Selfish. Rude.
LikeLike
He just wants his ten minutes of fame. Or so he thought.
I vote creepy.
LikeLike
As a self abosorbed, and typically ill equipped to handle emotion, American male, I too think his post was really creepy. Please accept my sincere apologies for all men of my kind.
LikeLike
I am so embarrassed for him. Because something tells me he will never understand why he should be.
LikeLike
I couldn’t help but think of the potential women in his future who are expected to live up to “contours and a calculus” of his life’s dreams as shaped by The Ex. More power to him if he is a richer person as a result of their relationship (I think we all hope we’ve grown from the relationships in our lives), but in this case it feels like he still thinks he’s in the relationship and she’s moved on. A shut the door.
I doubt his message was written from anything but a sincere place. Unfortunately, his brand of sincerity is misguided and overly self-indulgent. He completely missed the mark on a target at which he should never have taken aim. I would imagine The Bride has a much better sense of him than his reading public, and can appreciate it without (hopefully) paying it too much attention. She’s got far more exciting things to celebrate!!! A wedding! Champagne toasts! First dances! Bliss!
All that said, well intended or not, it’s the one gift every bride can do without.
LikeLike
Ohhh boy. There can only be one possible outcome this duded hoped for: a romantic-comedy-style race back into his arms.
Also, how weird were all the random facts about her? “She’s from the West Coast… she loves vodka and soda… she never wanted to stay in NY…” Is this a guessing game?
Creep-tastic… unless he wrote it in a private journal and kept it in a drawer for 80 years and then it was published after his death. Then, maybe, a little bit sweet.
LikeLike
I would be so pissed and frustrated if my ex does this to me in a year. Because now everyone is going to be asking “oh my god, what did you think of the article?! Did you see it? How do you feel.” And duh, it’s my wedding day, let’s focus on THIS union, not the one that never happened! Maybe a year after the wedding, a memoir esque essay would be fine, whatever, but on the day? Please. That is incredibly self centered and not at all out of purely good intentions.
LikeLike
In my limited experience of this, only the ickiest ex-boyfriends ever called again, leaving me free to assume that the ones I might not have minded calls from have too much class to do such a thing. The logic is twisted but simple: call equals creepy; no call equals wishing he would. In the world of ex-mates, wanting is much, much better than having.
LikeLike
Selfish, deluded creep who really REALLY wants to believe in his stated motive.
I had a less…effusive experience when a high school sweetheart realized I’d gotten married. It was less tribute and more “I’m still really sore about her kissing that other guy 10+ years ago, and now I know I’ll never sleep with her.” We’re friends and there’s a better-than-fair chance we’ll cross paths again (there’s a better-than-fair chance he’ll be in the room when I marry that guy I kissed 10+ years ago), and I’ll meet the wife who was his girlfriend when he penned that very public blog post.
Which won’t be awkward at ALL.
LikeLike
I am fully in the “creepy” camp; this is was utterly tactless at best, and scary at worst. The article just smacked of control issues to me, as though this man was trying to levy a degree of control over his (very wise) ex on her wedding day. That reads to me to be far more of a Gavin de Becker-esque red flag for potential abusive suitors than a sweet message to an old friend whom you merely intended to congratulate on her marriage. A message of congratulations simply would be that, and it would be conveyed privately.
LikeLike
I thought his original article was beyond tacky…to write a public piece like that on her wedding day?! Totally inappropriate and self-absorbed. I’m glad he got called out on it.
LikeLike
#31 Beth, I was thinking that this guy is never going to get a girlfriend again. That whole article is totally manipulative. “Until almost literally his dying day, my dad would ask me about her”. UGH!
LikeLike
Selfish creep who’s cheap to boot. Yeah, how is he still single?
LikeLike
He’s an ass. It’s sad.
LikeLike
It was gross.
LikeLike
Totally inappropriate for a wedding day. And totally inappropriate for PUBLISHING ON THE INTERNET. If he felt like he needed to express his appreciation, he should have written a letter and mailed it, privately – on a date not-close-at-all to her wedding.
LikeLike
I’ve been reading nothing but biographies this summer, and they all have long public confessionals about loves lost, so I was willing to cut the columnist a break since he probably won’t ever have an autobiography. But the line about absolving her from guilt was gross, and never telling his father they broke up is creepy, and the whole thing just went on too long.
LikeLike
Creepy.
You don’t say the things left unsaid. They’re unsaid for a reason.
You finish the letter that you write but never send so that it includes the ugly parts and the thankful parts. If you edit out the ugly parts to make yourself sound truly grateful, you sound like (what everyone else said) a narcissistic jerk.
LikeLike
Incredibly selfish and narcissistic.
LikeLike
Just plain bad and awful and cringe-worthy. It was a tribute to himself, thinly veiled as an open letter to someone else.
LikeLike
Chryse–Yes! Exactly! Not once was there an element to that letter that was truly praising the woman to whom it was addressed. It was all about him and his ego.
And, as evidenced by his heartfelt comments about career-minded women (as well as his truly misogynist comments about the columnist who pointed out the faults in his letter), it is obvious that this man does not respect women in the least. He, as a gift, is releasing the bride from her guilt about dumping him? Buddy, that lady already has her gift: the gift of not being in a relationship with you.
LikeLike
definitely selfish creep. no way would i want to read all that from an ex anywhere near the time of my wedding. ugh.
LikeLike
#30–exactly! The worst part is that he has no clue it is presumptuous, self-indulgent drivel. Yikes. Thank god she didn’t marry him.
LikeLike
No man wants to hear how his bride loved and was loved and is still loved. I can guarantee there was crying involved because of this article(somewhere in a bathroom eventually) and some tension depending on how jealous the groom is.
As a bride it wouldn’t bother me, but it would make me angry because of the effect on others. I think he should have published this in a year as “things I left unsaid on your wedding day – i hope you had a great year”.
Men were never great when it comes to empathy. Any men doing something like this should check with a woman.
LikeLike