The online wedding page for the New York Times differs vastly from that of the Providence Journal.

The Providence Journal (http://www.providencejournal.com/arts-entertainment/weddings/content/) focuses mainly on announcing weddings, and nothing more. They publish announcements for what seem to be upper-middle-class white families (based on the last names and venues of the weddings), which makes sense because this is a large demographic of the New England region.

In contrast, the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/fashion/weddings/index.html) has announcements, along with stories about weddings, articles about planning weddings, and links to politically charged articles about gay weddings.

The difference between the two papers and their wedding announcement tells us a lot about the publics they respectively serve. Clearly, the New York Times is a high-budget paper that can afford to feature specific weddings, as well as other stories of love and wedding preparation. Even the little-known names have fascinating stories. These range from, “The bride is an actress, the groom is a comedy writer” to, “They met on the subway, but not before taking many rides together.” The idea of the wedding section of the Times is not only to provide information about weddings that will occur, but also to provide entertaining stories to their readers. Thus, the Times reaches a public of many people who may not even know or have heard of the weddings they announce, but will care anyway because at the end of the day it’s still a good human interest story.

The Journal only seems to announce weddings. There is no section that includes human interest-type pieces on which dresses are trendy or what to do to make planning a wedding easier. It is likely that local readers have heard of the couples, or at least one member of each couple, who are being announced. The journal reaches a much closer public than the Times, and along with a smaller budget, is the type of paper that serves more local areas rather than a national scale.