Actually they're not self-written. The wedding section has a few parts: One are the briefs of the couples, perhaps 10-20 of these a week, 3 or 4 paragraphs, where they met, where they work, where they got married, where they went to college. I used to play a game called "Guess the Ivies" seeing if I could guess if they went to an Ivy League school based on their given names and professions. I hit correctly on about 60%.
The other part is an extended story of a couple that got married, thus the Pappas story. They sometimes write about famous people, semi-famous people, or not famous people at all. This story fell under that category. I'm not sure why Pappas is such a lightning rod here. She's a competitive runner, who has some outside interests, and garners some media interest. I guess that infuriates people. It's not that big of deal, really it's not.
* Also, the NY Times has done a story on marriages that didn't work, once every few months they highlight divorces. I'm guessing many of the posters on this site would fall into this category based on their constant anger and lack of self-control.