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| ����������� Recently, I attended the wedding ceremony of my cousin and her husband-to-be who would become her husband. To be honest, I was not looking forward to this wedding. This was not due to any ill will towards the bride or groom, but merely a disdain for weddings in general. | ||||||||
| ����������� The wedding was nice, to my surprise. Most of the weddings I have attended up to this point have all contained varying degrees of silliness, and I don't mean a "this formal and stuffy tradition is foolish to my forward way of thinking" kind of silly. I mean just slap-in-the-face-with-a-haddock type silly, though I am assuming unintentionally so. Regardless, they end up being funny but uncomfortable because no one wants some poorly dressed jerk laughing at their wedding unless it is a crazy uncle of some sort. | ||||||||
| ����������� This trend reached its Mt. Everest-like peak at the wedding of two former acquaintances of mine from high school. The zaniness started as soon as I received my invitation, though in truth it was odd that I even got one as I was never that close with them. The last time I had seen them was several months before at a Village Inn, where I stopped to get some celebratory oatmeal after successfully traveling 74 blocks on a main street without hitting a red light. The bride-to-be was also there, but probably for different reasons. She espied me, came over to where I was sitting, chastised me for paying too much for oatmeal and then told me to come to their wedding. | ||||||||
| ����������� What I thought was her just being polite turned into an actual invitation, an invitation that was embossed with a picture out of Disney's Cinderella and a rhyme inviting me to come to see her get married to Prince Charming (not actually his name). | ||||||||
| I didn't realize that the card was part of a larger theme, a theme that included a wedding cake resembling the castle from the animated film. I thought this was clever because, clearly, you want the foundation for a mature adult relationship to be centered on a cartoon. Fortunately, the theme did not go as far as to have rats in funny clothes armed with needles and thread, though I did sit in a pumpkin (this was unrelated). | ||||||||
| ����������� But the theme was just the start of what could only be described by those who like long words as a marathon of preposterousness. During the ceremony, the lighting of the unity candle was accompanied by a piano version of that classic hymn "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith. Nothing says love like music from a film about asteroids destroying the Earth. | ||||||||
| ����������� After the ceremony, the silliness was relocated to the reception where, at each seat, a small card with rhyming instructions on you how to propose a toast could be found. | ||||||||
| The Toast Rules (rhyme-less version): the Toast must contain the word love and must be sung, not spoken. | ||||||||
| Having apparently read the cards, all the groomsmen stood up and sang "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," which I'm sure they thought was hilarious, since it was just like that classic scene in that much-loved homosexual epic, Top Gun. However, if they had taken the nanoseconds to realize what the words in those words mean when placed in that particular sequence, they might have realized it wasn't the best song to sing at a wedding. Despite this sad fact, everyone seemed to enjoy the groomsmen's hilarious and toneless rendition except a brooding fellow who was sitting in my seat and wearing my clothes. | ||||||||
| ����������� No wedding since has even approached this, the Alpha and Omega of silly. At least, not until I have mine. I have already planned for puppets, a kazoo symphony, and a cannon to shoot me up the aisle, thus launching me forward into my new life. | ||||||||
| Most females that I tell this too laugh uncomfortably at my ideas and tell me that I will have no input whatsoever in my wedding. At first I thought this was outrageous and they were just afraid of new ideas, but it turns out that in most cases the wedding plan is left up to the bride and her family, and unless my bride turns out to a be a circus performer I can pretty much kiss the cannon goodbye. | ||||||||
| ����������� But if I cannot plan for what is said to be the most important day of my life, what is left for me? The most important day of my death, that's what. I have been to more funerals than weddings, and from these I've learned something. Weddings may inadvertently be silly, but a funeral could use a little intentional levity. I know in most cases, the funeral is not just for the deceased but also for the family, and frankly after all they've been through I think my eventual family will need a little cheering up. | ||||||||
| ����������� I have already started drawing up plans for putting the fun back in funeral. Some of the plan is easily achievable, for instance it calls for never using that crappy "fun" joke again. Other parts of the funeral plan are iffy, as they require that I die having made some modicum of money and I die in a way that would allow for an open casket. If all goes according to plan, then a casket really is not needed, as I am planning to host my own funeral. | ||||||||
| ����������� My funeral will start with my corpse greeting each guest as they come through the door. (I assuming that by the time I die I will have met and befriended a number of ventriloquists/puppeteers. I think this should be really easy since all it requires is finding one of these lonely souls, listen to a few jokes about "chips off the old block" and Whammo! Friend for life! Then at my funeral, out of a sense of friendship and duty, they will operate my body as a large marionette.) My face will be made up so that I look some facsimile of alive and glass eyes will replace my real ones as to not horrify my guests with rude, empty sockets. I will shake their hands as they enter and say pre-recorded messages such as, "Yes, it is a tragedy," "I sure was great," and "Who let you in here!?! Hahaha, I'm just kidding, it's great to see you. Glad you could come out." | ||||||||
| ����������� After that there will be a slideshow of tremendously amazing things that I did with my life which I am sure I'll start doing any day now. If not, I'll show some pictures of me doing boring things and intersperse pictures of a dog dressed in fancy clothes to get the audience all worked up emotionally. | ||||||||
| ����������� Then it's time for the eulogy, which will be delivered by the only person capable of revealing the pure beauty of my soul: me. I will start with a few jokes to break the tension, and then perhaps a dance (if the ventriloquists/puppeteers find this too complex, they can just shake me around and if luck and the lack of rigor mortis are on our side, I should flail quite jubilantly). I then will talk about all/how little I accomplished with/without the help of everyone I know/you jerks. | ||||||||
| I'm sure I'll have a hard time and begin to break up occasionally. If this happens, please bear with me, as I will have just suffered a tremendous loss, or just fast-forward past my pre-recorded blubbering. | ||||||||
| Next, it's time to leave the church and go to a nearby field where we will commit my body to the heavens, or as near to them as I can get. For once again, I hope to be launched into my next phase of existence, though a cannon would be too tacky for a somber occasion such as this, which is why I will have constructed a giant catapult. I will be loaded into it, a prayer said and then "Johns Away!" The pure beauty of my limbs waving wildly as my body glides through the air will be punctuated by the comic horror of my reintroduction with the ground. The crowd's shock will eventually give way to uncomfortable giggling, which will become sheer excitement as I'm loaded up for round two. | ||||||||
| Before round three starts, there will be a short break where food and drinks will be served. While this is being done, my body will be whisked away, dusted off, and then stuffed with fireworks. After that, I will be launched again, but this time exploding in midair in a wondrous display of lights, after which my detritus and many small parachutes will make their way back to the soily bonds of Earth. Plastic raincoats, like those given out at Gallagher concerts, will be provided to the first few rows so they won't get John on their nice clothes. Rows three and up are on their own. | ||||||||
| So consider this an open invitation. I do hope you'll come, especially if my boring wedding disappointed you. | ||||||||
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| Copyright 2003 John Meyers | ||||||||