Saturday, November 19, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
In Which They Actually Get Married
Rehearsal dinner, I’ve noticed, is a bit of a misnomer. It should be called a rehearsal and dinner. It’s not a dry run of getting food from the plate to your gaping maw so you don’t embarrass yourself at dinner, although that might not be a bad idea to pursue on your own time. I’ve seen some of you eat. But enough of this pedantry. The first part of the rehearsal takes place at wherever the wedding will occur, whether it’s a church, a beach, a park or Graceland. Hey, I’m not judging. Snickering a little bit, but not judging. The rehearsal goes over each step of the ceremony in mind numbing det- er, to ensure a smooth ceremony the next day.
Proper wedding procedure is impressed upon the wedding party, and the timing of everything is fine-tuned: everyone knows what music plays when, at what pace to walk down the aisle, and how often to cry. The whole ceremony is run through once, and then again going backwards, and again in pig Latin for good measure. Barring any unmistakable signs from God, you should be good to go.
The dinner afterwards is a chance to kick back and relax before the chaos that is a wedding sets in. You’ll get to mingle with the wedding party and family members, and meet new people. (Who’s that? Who, indeed.) After the rehearsal dinner, it’s a good idea to get to bed early so you’re well rested for the wedding. You won’t, though. There are holes to be punched and ribbons to be tied and photos to be matted. You’ll wish you had slept, though, when you get up at an ungodly hour to be brushed, teased, pinned and sprayed into tonsorial and cosmetic perfection.
First up is hair, where a stylist will attempt to defy both gravity and humidity with up to one metric ton of bobby pins. By the end of your session, there will be enough metal covering your head to block out the alien overlords’ mind control messages sent through the ozone hole all the hairspray used created. Trust me on this: I have an inside source. When getting your makeup and hair done, it’s a good idea to take a look at the makeup and hair of the artist working on you. That can be a pretty good indication of whether you’ll end up looking like a mutant Technicolor mime. Just a heads up.
Okay, on to the wedding, yes? The wait is over, The music is beginning, people are walking down the aisle. Don’t trip, that’s frowned upon. And as far as processional music goes, you don’t get more for your money than with one Ms. Heather, P.A. and I.T. extraordinaire. Everything from ‘Canon in D’ to the Spice Girls’ timeless ‘Two Become One,’ nothing says impending wedded bliss like the piano stylings of Heather. That's what we were talking about in the front seat.
After the wedding, guests are sometimes given nuptually approved projectiles or noisemakers, depending on whether the bride and groom prefer bodily or aural assault. As P.A.s Heather and I were bell hander outers, and we figured out immediately that bell distribution is not so much an art or a science but rather an alarmingly accurate popularity contest. She whose basket runs out first is obviously cuter and has a better sales pitch. Yes, we were making sales pitches for people to take free bells. What of it? I can’t remember who emptied their basket first, but there were some undocumented trades that no doubt skewed the results.
Next up? Can you say, ‘limo ride to the reception?!?’ Because I can! Sorry if my excitement is disproportionate to what a limo ride would seem to warrant, but the last time I had been in a limo was when I was six, and it had a phone and a TV in it, and that absolutely blew my mind because it was 1987. Cut me some slack. Limo advice: try to snag a forward or reverse facing seat. That long side bench seems like a good idea, but I ran some numbers and leather seats plus formal wear equal zero butt traction and potentially embarrassing situations. Enjoy your imaginary celebrity status and how all the other peons in regular cars are wondering who you are and what’s going down in Mankato that demands your presence. And once you return from your brief fugue from reality, it’s time to go to the reception.
First on the reception agenda is some serious mingling. Eat, drink and if you’re a P.A., forcibly eject people from seats that you were too slow to mark ‘reserved.’ Now that’s a party! When the mingling winds down, and if you’re lucky you get to sit at an exclusive booth with Gare-bear and Jan. But that’s only if you’re really special. The rest of you will have to settle for one of the other tables. Dinner was punctuated with guest-induced bouts of head table PDA, teary speechifying and plenty of photo ops. More mingling, and before you get to embarrass yourself on the dance floor, you must be embarrassed by the announcement of the wedding party. Have fun with that.
Enter the usual wedding reception folderol: bouquet toss (Heather, your vertical leap is envied by bachelorette gazelles everywhere), garter toss (revealing the blue sneakers the now Mrs. Kim was wearing… awesome.) and the assorted dances (father-daughter, mother-son, bride-groom, me-handsome/funny/smart groomsman… oh, wait. Wrong wedding. Wrong plane of existence). Then it’s time for the mandatory - trust me, I asked - starting of the public dancing as hosted by the wedding party and watched by everyone else.
Now, I’m not much of a dancer. At least at DC’s everyone else in my area was too busy trying not to roll an ankle to watch me look ridiculous. Unless of course, you’re Tara, who was too cool for line dancing and instead chose to spend the evening in a more dignified manner: perched atop a bale of hay amidst the townies. But anyway, the key to reception dancing if you’re a rhythm pariah such as myself is a child. As a dance partner, a child allows you to play off your dork-dancing as silly dancing for the sake of said child. Patented dance moves include ‘Modified Ring Around the Rosie,’ ‘Look What My Arms Can Do!,’ ‘Yes, My Dress Is Swishy, But You’re Right, Yours May Be Swishier,’ and ‘Oh, Are You Thirsty? I’ll Be Back Soon, I’m Just Getting Her a Drink.’ The rest of the reception will be a blur due to factors unknown.
Upon return to your hotel, the wedding detox process should begin immediately, for sleep is looming in your near future, bidden or no. It’s customary to wait until you actually enter the hotel room to begin, but choosing to change out of your dress in the hallway outside of your hotel room is purely a judgment call on your part. Next up is makeup removal. Good luck with that one. Be sure your sandpaper is non-comedogenic. Onto the hair. Here, you have some options. The first is the standard removal by hand. This is tedious and can take upwards of way too long. I am currently mentally beta testing a new method I think shows great promise. Based on nothing more than my experience with Warner Brothers Saturday morning cartoons, I think that if you could obtain an oversized horseshoe magnet and then hoist it over your head it would suck all the bobby pins out of your head in one fluid motion. It’s an essentially flawless plan, unless you have a metal plate in your head. But chances are you’d be aware of that and have the presence of mind to exclude yourself from my human trials. If you’re lucky enough to accomplish all of that before collapsing from exhaustion, consider yourself a wedding superstar.
Proper wedding procedure is impressed upon the wedding party, and the timing of everything is fine-tuned: everyone knows what music plays when, at what pace to walk down the aisle, and how often to cry. The whole ceremony is run through once, and then again going backwards, and again in pig Latin for good measure. Barring any unmistakable signs from God, you should be good to go.
The dinner afterwards is a chance to kick back and relax before the chaos that is a wedding sets in. You’ll get to mingle with the wedding party and family members, and meet new people. (Who’s that? Who, indeed.) After the rehearsal dinner, it’s a good idea to get to bed early so you’re well rested for the wedding. You won’t, though. There are holes to be punched and ribbons to be tied and photos to be matted. You’ll wish you had slept, though, when you get up at an ungodly hour to be brushed, teased, pinned and sprayed into tonsorial and cosmetic perfection.
First up is hair, where a stylist will attempt to defy both gravity and humidity with up to one metric ton of bobby pins. By the end of your session, there will be enough metal covering your head to block out the alien overlords’ mind control messages sent through the ozone hole all the hairspray used created. Trust me on this: I have an inside source. When getting your makeup and hair done, it’s a good idea to take a look at the makeup and hair of the artist working on you. That can be a pretty good indication of whether you’ll end up looking like a mutant Technicolor mime. Just a heads up.
Okay, on to the wedding, yes? The wait is over, The music is beginning, people are walking down the aisle. Don’t trip, that’s frowned upon. And as far as processional music goes, you don’t get more for your money than with one Ms. Heather, P.A. and I.T. extraordinaire. Everything from ‘Canon in D’ to the Spice Girls’ timeless ‘Two Become One,’ nothing says impending wedded bliss like the piano stylings of Heather. That's what we were talking about in the front seat.
After the wedding, guests are sometimes given nuptually approved projectiles or noisemakers, depending on whether the bride and groom prefer bodily or aural assault. As P.A.s Heather and I were bell hander outers, and we figured out immediately that bell distribution is not so much an art or a science but rather an alarmingly accurate popularity contest. She whose basket runs out first is obviously cuter and has a better sales pitch. Yes, we were making sales pitches for people to take free bells. What of it? I can’t remember who emptied their basket first, but there were some undocumented trades that no doubt skewed the results.
Next up? Can you say, ‘limo ride to the reception?!?’ Because I can! Sorry if my excitement is disproportionate to what a limo ride would seem to warrant, but the last time I had been in a limo was when I was six, and it had a phone and a TV in it, and that absolutely blew my mind because it was 1987. Cut me some slack. Limo advice: try to snag a forward or reverse facing seat. That long side bench seems like a good idea, but I ran some numbers and leather seats plus formal wear equal zero butt traction and potentially embarrassing situations. Enjoy your imaginary celebrity status and how all the other peons in regular cars are wondering who you are and what’s going down in Mankato that demands your presence. And once you return from your brief fugue from reality, it’s time to go to the reception.
First on the reception agenda is some serious mingling. Eat, drink and if you’re a P.A., forcibly eject people from seats that you were too slow to mark ‘reserved.’ Now that’s a party! When the mingling winds down, and if you’re lucky you get to sit at an exclusive booth with Gare-bear and Jan. But that’s only if you’re really special. The rest of you will have to settle for one of the other tables. Dinner was punctuated with guest-induced bouts of head table PDA, teary speechifying and plenty of photo ops. More mingling, and before you get to embarrass yourself on the dance floor, you must be embarrassed by the announcement of the wedding party. Have fun with that.
Enter the usual wedding reception folderol: bouquet toss (Heather, your vertical leap is envied by bachelorette gazelles everywhere), garter toss (revealing the blue sneakers the now Mrs. Kim was wearing… awesome.) and the assorted dances (father-daughter, mother-son, bride-groom, me-handsome/funny/smart groomsman… oh, wait. Wrong wedding. Wrong plane of existence). Then it’s time for the mandatory - trust me, I asked - starting of the public dancing as hosted by the wedding party and watched by everyone else.
Now, I’m not much of a dancer. At least at DC’s everyone else in my area was too busy trying not to roll an ankle to watch me look ridiculous. Unless of course, you’re Tara, who was too cool for line dancing and instead chose to spend the evening in a more dignified manner: perched atop a bale of hay amidst the townies. But anyway, the key to reception dancing if you’re a rhythm pariah such as myself is a child. As a dance partner, a child allows you to play off your dork-dancing as silly dancing for the sake of said child. Patented dance moves include ‘Modified Ring Around the Rosie,’ ‘Look What My Arms Can Do!,’ ‘Yes, My Dress Is Swishy, But You’re Right, Yours May Be Swishier,’ and ‘Oh, Are You Thirsty? I’ll Be Back Soon, I’m Just Getting Her a Drink.’ The rest of the reception will be a blur due to factors unknown.
Upon return to your hotel, the wedding detox process should begin immediately, for sleep is looming in your near future, bidden or no. It’s customary to wait until you actually enter the hotel room to begin, but choosing to change out of your dress in the hallway outside of your hotel room is purely a judgment call on your part. Next up is makeup removal. Good luck with that one. Be sure your sandpaper is non-comedogenic. Onto the hair. Here, you have some options. The first is the standard removal by hand. This is tedious and can take upwards of way too long. I am currently mentally beta testing a new method I think shows great promise. Based on nothing more than my experience with Warner Brothers Saturday morning cartoons, I think that if you could obtain an oversized horseshoe magnet and then hoist it over your head it would suck all the bobby pins out of your head in one fluid motion. It’s an essentially flawless plan, unless you have a metal plate in your head. But chances are you’d be aware of that and have the presence of mind to exclude yourself from my human trials. If you’re lucky enough to accomplish all of that before collapsing from exhaustion, consider yourself a wedding superstar.
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