- April 26, 2024
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The best part of any wedding is when the ceremony’s finally over.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying the ceremony’s a snooze fest or anything. But after the bride and groom finish planting each other some serious marital sugar, crazy things happen.
People throw birdseed. They cry. They cry and blow bubbles — simultaneously — which I used to believe was an impossible combination. If you’re at a TV wedding, people even tie cans to their cars and drag them around the city, because nothing says Love like reminding your recycling who’s really boss around here.
It’s indisputable, outside of churches, after weddings, all of society’s rules on proper behavior go catapulting out the window. But take it from me: You really don’t feel the full effect of these post-nuptial traditions if you’re not in the bridal party.
Last weekend, I had the privilege of being a groomsman in a best friend’s wedding. If you’ve never been a groomsman, let me tell you, it’s an honor. Not only do you get to spiral into crippling debt from footing the bill for tuxes and bachelor parties, but you also get to be in roughly 25,000 photos, all of which feature your patented Picture Smile, which is a mix of huge teeth, sore cheeks and dead eyes.
But even that is small potatoes. There’s something called a Receiving Line. Have you heard about these? It’s where the bride and groom stand outside the church, so that all of their guests can hug them and pinch their cheeks before drinking too much at the reception and stumbling home early.
But if you’re in the bridal party, I’ve got news for you: You’re in this line!
You get to be one of the important people other, lesser-important, peon-type people wait patiently to see. And if you’re anything like me, you take full advantage of this new, illustrious social standing.
“Consider yourself received,” I said, generously, extending my hand to one of the groom’s, or the bride’s, or whoever’s, distant relatives. “How lucky you are to gain such an audience with the likes of me.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” I said to the next, graciously, motioning toward my hand, as if to add, “Ehem ... my ring is not going to kiss itself, thank you very much.”
The best part is how, over time, the guests start buying into this little game of role-play. After all, I was one of the few standing in the church while they all sat. And you know what? I was a great stander.
“Why, thank you, miss,” I said, philanthropically, to a little old lady who told me I did well today. “It was nothing, really. Oh, this old thing? I only wear it when I don’t care how I look!”
At the end of all that — the photos, the line, the reception introduction, when you get to saunter to a special table on display at the front of the hall after your name is announced on loudspeaker — it was clear: I had garnered some major respect and admiration in that room.
And then music came on and I started dancing, and it felt like one of those Westerns when an out-of-towner busts into the saloon and the pianist stops playing and the whole joint goes silent.
Then it hit me, right in the middle of my patented dance, The Seizure-Like-Flail-No-Matter-What-Song-Is-Playing. People were staring. I’d dethroned myself from my own high horse.
Everything was back to normal. And that’s when I stopped Flailing, obligingly.
And to think, I’d gone out of my way to receive these people. Do traditions mean nothing these days?
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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