1) No matchmaker. You select the "propose" option when at a location to select from available candidates for marriage.
2) No, you can't skip the item animations. You can skip through the ending animations, though.
I've been wanting to patch my P's into English for awhile now, among other things (wallpaper downloads especially), but I cannot for the life of me find a good device for transferring files via IR, whether it be an old mobile phone, or an IR USB dongle (which I cannot find at all). Does anyone...