Sunday, September 28, 2008

My best sister's wedding

I suppose, if you’re going to get all misty-eyed in front of people, that only your sister’s wedding is as good a time as any. Still, there’s no quicker way to have your Man Card rescinded than to tear up in public. And if you have to pause to compose yourself while speaking during the ceremony, and then you STILL have trouble getting the words to crawl over the lump in your throat, then you should probably brace yourself to get kicked out of the Man Club entirely.

This is the situation I found myself in last weekend, as my family came together in San Diego (where the weather can, as we found out the hard way, jarringly swing between 71 and 73 degrees), to celebrate my sister Amy’s wedding. In my defense, the majority of the ceremony was a full-out sobfest, with enough blubbering to power all of the oil lamps in a Charles Dickens novel.

Much like how yawns can be passed to innocent bystanders, I must have caught the tears from somebody in the audience. That’s the only logical explanation available, and it’s the one I will be bringing forward to the Man Board at my hearing.

Amy and Jaime had decided to have their ceremony on a boat floating in the bay, with just their immediate family members present to witness their most special of occasions. The ceremony was probably so emotional because there was no groom to stand there, ashen-faced, staring at the EXIT sign (or in this case, the dinghy) and thinking hard about his remaining options. Of course, when I was a groom, I was so psyched to get married that those kinds of thoughts never came close to passing through my mind, and I in no way wanted to do anything that would have caused my wife Kara to get as angry at me as she did when she read the first draft of this column, before I added this sentence.

If you’ve never attended a wedding that featured two brides, you might not have realized just how vestigial grooms really are. At my own wedding, I doubt anyone besides my then-fiancée-for-a-few-more-seconds Kara would have noticed if they’d have wheeled a scarecrow out to take my place. After the kiss at the end, Kara would have picked the hay out of her mouth and the party would have gone along as planned, with the only other noticeable difference being that the scarecrow would have made a much better dance partner.

Delivering a short speech during nautical nuptials presents challenges that land-lubbing speech givers might not appreciate, and where the danger of going overboard during one’s speech is quite literal. All of the family members who spoke last weekend, though, managed to hang onto their sea legs, if not their dry eyes.

Kara ended the ceremony by reading a poem to accompany a Celtic stone-tossing ceremony, during which each family member made a wish for the couple and threw a stone into the bay. Earlier in the day, we’d helped Amy and Jaime collect rocks for the ceremony from under the bushes in the front yard of Jaime’s brother and my co-best-man, Steve.

After the ceremony, as the two families relaxed and laughed together, and Jaime’s five-year-old cousin Kyler hammed it up for the cameras, posing in her flower girl dress like she was the week’s winning contestant on “America’s Next Top Model,” Jaime told Steve that we’d gathered rocks from his yard.

“Dude, I collected those rocks from all over the world!” Steve said.

And I thought, or maybe hoped, just for a moment, that he might get publicly upset enough to have to join me at the next Man Board hearing.

As providence would have it, we’d stopped at the beach and picked up smoother rocks for the ceremony, bringing Steve’s rocks back and dumping them under his bushes. Apparently, except for the occasional man tear, fate was smiling upon all of us that day.

You can throw stones at Mike Todd at mikectodd@gmail.com.

11 comments:

  1. That was a great article. Looks like it was a beautiful ceremony!

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  2. Very sweet. They look very happy together.

    Le'chaim!

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  3. i was at a Celtic stone-tossing ceremony only last night. It was better known as a rugby game, and we were tossing the stones at the home team players who were losing 18-0.

    Don't worry about the Man Card, Mike...just do a post about deer-hunting or crushing beer cans off your head next week and that should balance things out.

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  4. Russ -- Thanks, Home Fried Potaters. You the man. And it was beautiful. Amy and Jaime know how to put on a weddin'.

    Chris -- Word, man. Mazel tov.

    JL -- Ha, thanks for the excellent advice. I gotta go practice opening beer bottles with my teeth now.

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  5. Upon first reading this title I thought this was going to be about siblings marrying each other...

    Still, funny stuff as always.

    P.S. You look like a freakin' giant in that last picture.

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  6. Oliver -- Dang, man, you're right. I really should have thought up a different title. I was going for a "When Animals Attack!" kind of thing, but I think ended up with more of a Jerry Springer kind of thing.

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  7. "The ceremony was probably so emotional because there was no groom to stand there, ashen-faced, staring at the EXIT sign (or in this case, the dinghy) and thinking hard about his remaining options. Of course, when I was a groom, I was so psyched to get married that those kinds of thoughts never came close to passing through my mind, and I in no way wanted to do anything that would have caused my wife Kara to get as angry at me as she did when she read the first draft of this column, before I added this sentence." <-- This is the funniest sentence you have ever written. Way to go! :)

    ... and Oliver, he is a giant!

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  8. Hey Mike,

    Truly a pleasant surprise! I cant begin to tell you how nice it is to read about a same sex marriage written with such fondness, especially by a family member. I wish it were the same the world over.
    In India, where I come from, the whole idea is so badly frowned upon that couples go into hiding or suffer from guilt pangs. It's rare that anyone amongst our 1 billion (and growing) population has the guts to come out and admit their sexual preference.
    Anyways Kudos to you! good work! and Congrats and Best Wishes to Amy and Jamie! You gals rock!

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  9. Serginations -- Thanks dude! That sentence probably benefited from some weak competition.

    Ann -- Thanks so much for the kind sentiments. You rock.

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  10. Damn! I wish I could have gone. There is a really hot landscape architect that I met who lives in SD..... ummm, I mean, I would have loved to see Amy & Jaime exchange vows.

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  11. Ah bless... all of you.

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