Any of these scenarios sound familiar to you?
- Your mother thought you’d get married in a church, but you’ve decided to have a naked wedding in a yurt at Burning Man. A fight ensues.
- Your sister has always thought she’d be your Maid of Honor. You’re choosing your gay best friend Tom instead. A fight ensues.
- Your father has always dreamed of walking you down the aisle. You’ve decided to parachute straight to the altar. A fight ensues.
Yep… everyone has an opinion about weddings. Especially other people’s weddings. And while it might be tempting to tell your Aunt Lucy what you really think of her suggestion of having a Barack Obama piñata at the reception, I suggest you use these carefully-crafted blow offs instead.
When someone says… “I think you should consider getting married (in Hawaii, Mexico, a church) instead of (the place you actually want to get married).”
Resist the urge to say: “And I think you should consider getting thinner instead of fatter.”
Instead say: “Thanks for your suggestion! We’ll definitely consider that location- isn’t it great that there are so many wonderful places to get married?”
When someone says… “I can’t believe you’re not having (flowers, cake, a Haitian juggler) at your wedding.”
Resist the urge to say: “And I can’t believe you’re still trying to pass off that toupee as real hair.”
Instead say: “I know, it’s disappointing, isn’t it? But hopefully you’ll still be able to enjoy the wedding without (insert useless item here).”
When someone says… “You know you’re not supposed to (wear a tux on the beach, email your wedding invitations, actually think for yourself).”
Resist the urge to say: “You know you’re not supposed to decorate your entire house in Precious Moments figurines, but that’s never stopped you.”
Instead say: “Emily Post would roll over in her grave! (Insert laugh here) I guess we’ll be trendsetters! (insert wink here).”
When someone says… “You can’t (feed people appetizers instead of dinner, not serve alcohol, hold your wedding on a Thursday).”
Resist the urge to say: “No problem! We’ll have it whenever you want. Should I just have the bills sent directly to you or would you prefer to use PayPal?”
Instead say: “Oh well. At least you’ll (save the calories, not have a hangover, still have your weekend free) if you attend!”
Last week I went out to see a concert and discovered that I’m old. And I’m OK with it.
The catalyst for this shocking discovery was that the headlining band didn’t come on until 12:15 AM. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, that was when I started the night. Now that’s when I want to be in bed, fast asleep. (Mercifully, the band – a Danish funk/R&B outfit called Asteroid Galaxy Tour – was quite good.) A mere decade ago, it felt edgy and illicit to stay in a bar until 4 AM. Now, edgy means sleeping in past 9. Pretty soon I’ll be eating raisin bran and watching Matlock and talking about when a gallon of gas cost $2.
The great part is that this evolution takes away one of my big fears around marriage. Generally, I had the impression that a wedding was also a funeral for your social life. Everything you did from then on had to be a wholesome, bland activity, acceptable to your party-adverse spouse. You would be doomed to gamely feigning excitement about microwaved leftovers followed by an evening of playing Scrabble, while your friends rage at a nightclub and have the greatest time ever known.
However…
- Jaime is fun – much more so than me, in fact,
- I no longer equate alcohol with automatic entertainment, because it can also lead to narcolepsy and hangovers.
- I don’t really want to rage until 2 AM because I actually like walking the streets of San Francisco before the hipsters get up.
- I know more words than dance moves.
I know that after the wedding, Jaime and I will still go to concerts, clubs, and parties. But I also know that some Saturday nights I’ll be pulling out the Scrabble board and trying to score a bingo with M-A-T-L-O-C-K.
INT. JAIME’S BEDROOM. NOON.
No, this isn’t that type of blog entry, you freaking pervert.
My roommate and I have been dealing with annoying Internet issues for the past several days. Every morning, one of us has to schlep out to the family room to restart the modem and the wireless router. I know, I know. Such a hard life.
So this morning, on my daily trip out to the living room, I found myself bitterly listing the many things that I thought could be causing our Internet to crash. In the span of ten seconds, I managed to blame Comcast, our upstairs neighbors, and my janky cable-to-internet setup.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
When I walked into the living room I was confronted by not ten, not twenty, but six hundred billion ants having a family fun day in and around our wireless router. Never mind the kitchen, which was a mere twenty paces away. No, our ants are so 2.0 that they like to party with technology. As I spent the next hour spraying, sweeping, swiping, and dust busting my new found friends, I had the kind of realization that only comes when you’re inhaling roach/ant killer. Ready? Here it is…
Trying to guess what marriage will be like is kind of like guessing what caused my router to drop this morning. I never would have gotten it right.
Ok, I told you the analogy was going to be bad. I even went so far as to warn you in the title of this blog post. But since we’re already here… let’s take this FTW…
One of the reasons Chris and I are going on this road trip is to chat with our married friends and family about what they thought marriage was going to be like before the big day… and what marriage actually turned out to be. We want to know the good, the great, the fantastic, the bad, the sad, and the craptastic. So get your stories ready- we want to hear them.
I promise not to write anything else while under the influence of Raid.
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