Weddings Are Fun!

Hey, thanks for inviting me to your wedding that’s taking place on the other side of the country. I was just looking at this pile of money here and wondering what the hell I was going to do with it. But now I guess I’ll spend it on your wedding because that’s what’s important to me, not paying my bills.

You rule Expedia.com! Only $750 for a plane ticket? If websites were people you’d be my best friend because you never try to take advantage of me. And hotel.com, you’re my other pal because you’re only charging me $500 to stay at the Embassy Suites for three days where I’ll sleep under covers that are infested with some derelict’s sperm and his girlfriend’s vagina bugs. Two hundred more of my dollars to Mr. Tux so I can look like a complete asshole on a team of assholes and I’m on my way. Oh wait, I almost forgot the gift! What am I some kind of cheap-o?

Weddings are fun.

You HAVE to get married in life, I mean, otherwise, what the hell’s the point, right? I don’t want to be alone at the end of the day without someone giving me instructions on what I should do next. Who will remind me to take the garbage out or that I’m not a good person? Also, spending TWICE the money as a single person and buying two of everything just feels right. I need 2 cars, 2 cell phone bills and 2 different kinds of shampoo because evidently “you can’t use Pert Plus on a woman’s hair.” If I wasn’t spending I’d be saving, and what good would my money be doing if it were sitting in a bank somewhere providing me with financial security? Gotta put my cash to work.

After I arrive in town for the wedding, I enjoy a complimentary car service from the Groom’s awkward cousin who won’t stop talking to me about how much he loves weed. He’s thirty-seven.

Hotel check-in time. As I approach the counter, I think about my odds as to whether or not the hotel has fucked up my room. If I had to bet, I’d say there’s a 90% chance they’ll be sticking me in a smoking room with two double beds. Okay, more like 100%. While I’m at the counter, one of my friends thinks it would be a great idea if we shared a room, considering we’re thirty and he’s the cheapest motherfucker ever. I pretend I have a cold and threaten to get him sick if we go splitsies. But he insists and it looks like we’re gonna be the two weirdos at the wedding who are “sleeping” in the same room.

Before I know it, we’re off to the wedding rehearsal. What wedding would be a success without a successful Wedding Rehearsal? This is where you practice how you’re going to walk in a straight line for twenty-five yards, stand in place for the duration of the ceremony and then walk back. Certainly nothing you could figure out on the eve of the wedding. We do it six times.

This is followed by the Rehearsal Dinner which I’m not so sure is necessary. I’ve been eating dinner since 1980 and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. You could say I’m a natural. But the best part of this event is talking to the bride and groom’s relatives for hours on end about absolutely nothing. The key to a successful conversation here is to keep bringing up how you “can’t believe they’re actually getting married.” Whenever there is a lull in the conversation, just come right back to that thesis. Neither of you will really mean it, but it will fill the void of having to awkwardly stare at each other with nothing to say.

Also, if you stumble upon a funny joke that works like “I can’t believe he’s getting married either, I thought he was gay!”, just keep using it with everyone you talk to. Most people are so clueless they’ll think it’s the first time you said it. And if not, who cares? They’re probably just happy someone’s talking to them in the first place.

Speeches are a great way to share the inner-most personal feelings you’ve had bottled up inside you for years but were previously too sober to express. It’s also an opportunity to embarrass the shit out of yourself. If you’re the best man, don’t write a speech. In fact, don’t do any preparation whatsoever. Just get wasted and wing it. Studies show that people actually prefer to hear speeches that are essentially one long run-on sentence and make absolutely no sense at all:

…Well…we are all here for this…blessed union…of holy matrimony…joining two people together…intertwined with one and other, living their lives together in love, both each other headed…for wedded…bliss….(burp)….

Way to come prepared, buddy.

The only thing better than a live band at a reception is a Wedding DJ. Wedding DJ’s are people who own iPods. They make sure your wedding is a hit, by standing around the iPod and preventing it from getting unplugged during the celebration. Not everybody knows how to plug those things back in. They’re confusing! USB, MP3, GGG, I’m old, I don’t get it!

When I was a kid, I was always told I should wait an hour after eating before going swimming. Well, this is definitely NOT the case when there’s a dance floor involved and you just finished eating a three-course meal at a wedding. After you suck down your meal and you’ve fill your stomach to the brim with rolls, cake and alcohol, get your bloated ass on the dance floor for the Electric Slide and start working off those calories. If this causes you to briefly vomit in your own mouth you’re doing it right.

People never know how much to give for a wedding gift and my opinion on this is you should give people zero. What I like to do is send them a card with a photocopy of all my expenses for the week and a pink Post-it note on top that reads, “You’re Welcome, Assholes.”

It really doesn’t matter what you give people for a gift because whatever you give them, they give you right back. It’s the Golden Rule of Weddings: “Give people the exact amount of money they gave you, not a penny more, or a penny less and please don’t ask questions about why that makes no sense.”

The other option is to “forget the gift” on the day of the actual wedding. People say you have a year to give one, but you know what else takes a year? Forgetting who gave you gifts in the first place.

I guess that means I have 359 days to go…. I hope no one brings it up….

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