"Marry the One Who Gets There First" subtitled, "Outtakes from the Sheidegger-Krupnik Wedding Album," by Heidi Julavits, was first published in Esquire, in 1998. It was also published in The Best American Stories, 1999. The story is set in Stanley, Idaho, at a mountain lodge where a wedding is about to take place. It is a darkly comic tale about love and betrayal structured around the descriptions of thirty-six photographs. Julavits got the idea for this photo-based structure from a photo essay which featured pictures that were not included in people's final wedding albums. At the time, Julavits was also preparing for her own wedding and was all too aware of how wedding albums capture the unwavering cheer of the day. The less glamorous, at times irreverent, photos that were not considered worthy of inclusion in the albums gave Julavits the idea for her satirical story, which takes aim at the myths associated with romantic love and exposes some of the darker secrets of the not-so-happy couple.
Source: Short Stories for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
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