Last Call: Wedding Advisory
Giffurda, Joe
LAST CALL by Joe Giffurda Wedding Advisory T HE BEST WEDDING I EVER WENT TO took place a few years back in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. The Presbyterian church had bare whitewashed walls and...
...We unmarried folk enjoy the most enviable of lifestyles, with nothing to do after work but take yoga classes at the Open University or play catch-up volleyball with our fellow tenants in the garden-apartment complex...
...After all my hassles with plane changes, rental cars, and poor directions, I have decided that the perfect spot for a wedding would be the airport chapel in a major airline's hub city, with the reception at the airport Marriott or Hilton...
...As always, it's the thought that counts...
...We can get divorced in two weeks...
...Oh, for a little patience...
...Yet at weddings we sink to the rank of untouchables, wretches let into the feast to remind the coupled majority how lucky they really are...
...The eight to ten people at a swingles table probably have nothing in common except their solitude, which doesn't bode well for lively conversation, much less inspired flirtation...
...The minister said a few words, to the effect that we would all be dead very soon and ought to behave as well as possible in the meantime...
...There was organ music at the beginning and the end, a single hymn in between, and a straightforward exchange of vows...
...The Presbyterian church had bare whitewashed walls and clear windows...
...I 90 April 1997 • The American Spectator...
...The marriage was annulled soon after...
...One woman I know didn't think so...
...Nor were the guests—until afterwards, when they could tell the story...
...Fine," he said, "but let's not waste the tickets...
...After that she calmed down, and of course by the end of the trip was happily reconciled to her new state...
...As we know from the Gospel of John, running out of wine at a wedding reception is a calamity worthy of divine intervention...
...Moreover, weddings are inherently exciting—dramatic performances with real consequences...
...A remote waterfall or a picturesque Vermont hamlet are fine spots to visit on a honeymoon, but not to drag your frail grandparents and child-toting friends to...
...The best one can hope for is farce...
...On their first night in Rome, a honeymooning wife told her husband, "This was a mistake...
...Food, flowers, music—nothing matters much by comparison when it comes to keeping everybody happy...
...We are resigned to this role, and prefer social events that are not attempts at social engineering...
...One maid of honor thought it would be amusing to list all the men the bride had ever tried out for the groom's position...
...I haven't been to one yet where something hasn't gone wrong...
...A (distant) cousin of mine showed greater commitment...
...Stint on alcohol and your guests will curse you and all your descendants...
...At another wedding, one of the groomsmen rose to "bless this union," and decry all the "bad women" who had rejected his friend up till then...
...when it came time to leave the party, he said he was having too much fun, and let his bride go off by herself...
...The notion that there's fairy dust in the air, and that everyone will pair off by the end, as in a Shakespeare comedy, is just fantasy...
...But no undertaking so complicated can be surefire...
...This would make connecting flights and overnight stays unnecessary for most guests, who could buy their presents on site...
...Once the groom, his party, and all the guests have arrived for the ceremony, it is a little late for cold feet...
...Her father showed up at the synagogue and asked everyone to go straight to the reception, which went on like a not very lively wake...
...I have toasted the newlyweds in country clubs and hotels—and once on the grounds of a nursing home, where residents in wheelchairs watched the festivities from a few yards away...
...the only ornament was a massive brass cross over where the altar would have been if there hadn't been a Reformation...
...OVER THE LAST TEN YEARS, I have seen my friends walk down the aisle in churches and private gardens...
...Location, location, location...
...It wasn't until the end of his wedding day that he had second thoughts...
...Booze covers a multitude of sins...
...Expect lots of cigarettes, consumer electronics, and John Grisham novels...
...But generosity carries its own dangers, so remember to clear all toasts...
...At yet another, a fellow recounted one of the groom's college stunts—attempting sexual congress with the statue of a Civil War hero in a public park—and declared that his friend's taste had greatly improved...
...I have waded in mud under a half-fallen tent, and watched fireworks go off over the Hudson in honor of the bride and groom...
...I'm going home...
...The bride's father, a clergyman and prominent politician, was not amused...
...For all those now in the late, frantic stages of planning June nuptials, I offer a few suggestions to help their marriages start off well: Make up your mind...
...What I most admired was neither the aesthetics nor the theology of the ceremony but its brevity: We were in and out, and off to the reception, in hardly more than twenty minutes...
...It has all been worth the time and trouble: No gesture of friendship is at once so meaningful and so easy to reciprocate as a wedding invitation...
...Mainstream the swingles...
Vol. 30 • April 1997 • No. 4
