yesterday i attended a wedding, which accounts for the silence around here. nothing against the two strangers whose wedding i attended yesterday, i’m sure they are swell folks, but i must say- i think weddings are possibly the most dreadful of all celebratory occasions. an unpopular position i know, but seriously… aren’t weddings crapulent to the max?  what i find particularly staggering is that weddings seem to be awful not only for the guests but also for the betrothed themselves! i’ve never been to a wedding in which the participants seemed anything other than stressed, overwhelmed, and eager to be done with the whole thing. why do we do it to ourselves? and why do we do it to our friends and family? does anyone enjoy a wedding?

i’m not married myself, so my vision of the bride and groom as people trying desperately to feel the much ballyhooed unrivaled “specialness” in a day which is in actuality filled with overwhelming stress is inference only. the bride and groom seem in a fog of horror much of the time… again only an inference. i have, however, been a guest of the “total stranger” variety, a guest of the “good buddy” variety, a best man, and believe it or not even the “priest,” so i do have a few different perspectives from which to base my feelings on the matter. by and large it seems everyone involved from the guy serving the beer for dollar tips, to the wedding party, to the cousins and cousin’s boyfriends, to the soon to be newlyweds would rather be somewhere else.

as a guest you are compelled to cram yourself into some outfit you feel utterly uncomfortable and out of sorts in, then stand around making chit-chat with relatives, strangers, even arch enemies. in some cases you find yourself seated opposite said arch enemy. you drink too much because it’s the only activity available to you within the wedding compound which feels warmly familiar. worst of all though, and i’m sure some of you will gasp at this statement, you are expected to spend a good 6 hours at least celebrating someone else’s love! ha! who can muster up the amount of empathy necessary to actually feel anything about someone else’s “love?” yick.

as a member of the wedding party you are “honored” into an afternoon of stiff, smiling, lock-step. not really much fun. too connected to the proceedings to escape and blend into the drunken woodwork, not connected enough to get any of the swag. nuff-said.

as a “priest,” or at least as an amateur one, you write a long speechy type thing two days before, then attempt to memorize it while pacing in the hotel parking lot. you dread public speaking and as such you get so nervous that you are sure you are going to puke all over the brides dress. even so you shoot down a couple of whiskeys just to take the edge off. harrowing experience to say the least.

so to sum up- bride and groom: stressed and horrified. parents: broke and suspicious. grandparents: tired and complaining. little kids: fidgeting. wedding party: stuck. priest: nauseous and smelling of whiskey. band: reminded yet again of their failures. bartender: bitter as hell. guests: would rather be playing scrabble. so who enjoys these damned things?!

anyhow my evident cynicism aside this is all beside the point. what i in fact wish to share with you is the single wondrous aspect of the wedding i attended yesterday. i only wish you could have all been there with me to experience it!

setting: imagine a large hall against the back wall of which the vows and i-do’s will be exchanged. approximately 6 feet from the floor this back wall turns into a huge room wide window. pretty. lots of light. after some milling about the ceremony begins. the wedding party files in. the groom takes his place, and then the bride. the judge, or priest, or whatever he was takes his place and the pretty words begin…

all exactly what you’d expect. but here’s the genius part. this huge room-wide window which frames everything, towering over the proceedings, looks out onto… wait for it…. a log flume. right there, two feet away, not off in the distance. a functioning, peopled, splashing, clickety-clacking log flume! imagine it! while shy bridesmaids read lovey-dovey poetry fake logs are shooting down the track.  while the betrothed read their vows two young hindu kids with matching black head-wraps click-clack up the track toward the apex. while the priest is busy expressing the weight and joys of matrimony a fat guy with a soaking wet, bright orange, shirt throws his arms up and lets out a guttural roller coaster scream. it was amazing. it was better than any wes anderson scene. i could swear right at “for better or worse” someone shooting down yelled out “cccrrrrrraaaaaaaaaapppppp!” ah. what fun.

i watched the thing the whole time. trying to decode the meanings each configuration of logs shed on the words being said. a log without people during this particular reading?! what does it mean? i kept trying to figure out what exactly the metaphor i was surely witnessing meant. i stifled laughter again and again like a super-high high schooler. i kept thinking how just about everyone in the room would most certainly prefer to be out there in a plastic log.

i suppose you just had to be there. i’ve created a quick little illustration to help you visualize it better. try to imagine a drone of solemn marriage related words punctuated by an odd exhilarated or fearful scream…

haha. good stuff.

well, if anyone who is in fact married would like to dispel or confirm my suspicions about the wedding day or has any insight into the whole thing speak up. also, if you can top the log flume feel free.