mairwegg

The wedding is a whirlwind. It approaches quickly and goes by ridiculously fast. You get pulled in so many directions that I have a hard time remembering who showed up at the reception. I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with any alcohol I may or may not have consumed during the celebration. (If someone, unrequestedly (?) hands you a beer, you have to drink it, right? It's totally bad juju to refuse/nurse it.)

Anyway, a series of loosely related items concerning the wedding/honeymoon:

• The receiving line was pretty funny to me. Had I thought about it, I would have been on the left (1st) and put theMonica on the right (2nd). As it was, people talked to her first and then me. This is the equivalent of a reanimated Beatles opening for William Hung. I mean, how is Willy going to follow that? Generally, the receiving went something like this:
  
  To theMonica: "You are such a beautiful bride. You look so gorgeous! You are the most beautiful bride I have EVER SEEN! They should box you up and sell you at the beautiful store! Radiant! Gorgeous! Stupendous! Hooray beautiful bride!"
  move over 2 feet
  To theMe: "And Roger . . . you're . . . here."


• At the start of the day, I was saying I enjoyed all the hoopla over me getting married, even though it's only, honestly, 40% about me. Well, by the end of the day, I had self-downgraded my importance to about 2%. It's like the king/queen on a chessboard. The king is integral to the game - he has to be on the board - but otherwise he's generally useless/in the way.


• While true, for once in my life, when I said stuff, people were paying attention. They'd confirm with Monica, but still initially they heard what I had to say.


• They serve you everything first. If you're on the fence about getting married, this is a deal maker right here.


• I had a really great time dancing and talking to basically every person I know for 6 to 8 seconds a piece.


• We were struggling with doing the talking table-to-table thing. We had 38 tables or something crazy. Eventually, we decided to do it, but keep it quick. So, my opening was, "TABLE 16!! This is where we sat all the hip people!" You say "hip" when they're old. Or, "Table 12! This is where the party starts! Who are you again?" You ask about the food, kiss the babies, press some flesh - then you get out of there. The saving grace to the operation was that the table people were still eating so they didn't want to talk. Gold.


• During the wedding process, you get kind of used to the idea that you're special. You're important and gosh-darnit, people like you! Then you get on a plane and go to St. Lucia where you discover that you are one of the 800 couples on this tiny island who got married on 9/29/07. This proves a couple of things: 1. There are a crapload of people in the world and 2. As I expected, I'm not special.


• Mad props to our honeymooner friends: Jodee/Rob, Brooke/Mike, Elizabeth/Darren and Robin/Matt were great peeps. When you first get there, it's like college, you hang out with the nearest available couple because you don't want to end up friendless. Eventually, you karaoke "Build Me Up Buttercup" and find some cool people and hang out with them instead. (Sorry friends of convenience!) Unfortunately, we found our crew a bit too late, but we got some QT in.


• Speaking of karaoke, mad props to the British couple . . . uhh . . . Penny and Mark (?). Penny loved her some Black Velvet. A little too much, but ok. And Mark . . . wow. I just can't explain in words how completely terrible he was at karaoke. It was like watching a guy get hit in the crotch . . . for 4 minutes straight. The red traveling across the words means you're supposed to be singing that now.