The Hazards of Weddings

It's wedding season, and once again I find myself invited to weddings by friends who are deranged enough to want me to be there to witness their joyous event. I don't have anything against weddings per se, but they're fraught with enough hazards to make them a truly exhausting ordeal.

Based on my vast experience of going to weddings as a single woman, I have learned a few things about what to do and, more importantly, what not to do. Cardinal Rule: don't bring your boyfriend/fiancee, no matter what the stage or status of your relationship. While you're sitting there, simply enjoying watching your friends take their vows, your significant other will almost invariably be thinking, "Oh shit! If I stay with her, we might end up getting married! Flee while there's still time!" I know this because I have had three boyfriends who have broken up with me within a week of going to a wedding with me, all of them muttering things about not being ready to make a commitment, as if I had given them some sort of ultimatum or even remotely broached the subject. I have concluded that there's nothing like a wedding to cause an otherwise normal man to go completely insane in the relationship department.

That being said, there's also a danger in going to a wedding without a date. If you go dateless, every female from the bride's mother to the groom's Great Aunt Mildred will try to set you up with a nice boy from church of the son of a coworker. Nothing you say will deter them. I haven't yet tried saying that I only date barnyard animals, but I can just imagine the response would be, "Well, there's a farmer down the road that has some lovely sheep...."

Which brings me to another wedding tradition I despise: the bouquet toss. I am convinced that the sole purpose of the bouquet toss is to embarrass the hell out of all the single people in attendance. I avoid it at all costs, to no avail. I have actually had "friends" (thanks Jennifer and Michelle) who have held up the festivities and dragged me from my hiding spot in the bathroom so that I am then forced to participate. Predictably, the bouquet headed straight for me. They always do. I could be hiding in the coat closet and the bouquet would zip around corners and through closed doors to land at my feet.

In this particular instance I had my hands behind my back, so the bouquet bounced off my chest and landed on the floor. Even though I had not technically "caught" the bouquet, my "friends" decided it was mine. So I had to endure the whole sitting on the lap of the guy who caught the garter, all the while thinking of creative ways to kill Jen and Michelle while the photographer snapped pictures. I'm sure the photos were lovely.

So, as you can probably tell, I'm looking forward to some great times. I guess it could be worse - I could be a bridesmaid.