A whole table full of stuff is needed for a wedding ceremony. Wedding rings, vows on note cards, sharp knives (which come in handy later), etc. A portable card table looks cheap up on the altar, though. So someone gets assigned to carry all of it.
The groom (in one of the two things the groom gets to do without consulting every member of the bride's family: the other one involves bathroom privileges) allocates that to whoever he thinks will screw up the ceremony least. This is usually a family member, because everyone's worst fear is for your mom to yell at you the rest of your life despite that donkey you sent down the aisle in the veil really getting a big laugh.
My brother Jeff allocated me to fill the tux for his wedding. Conceivably I could just wear whatever clothes have a lot of pockets, but having someone on the altar be in cargo pants and Michael Jackson's red leather jacket would get me in more trouble than the donkey idea. Same goes for the rest of the groomsmen, so our other brother Brendan and Jeff's old roommate Vinnie also needed to rent tuxes.
Cindy the bride coordinated their outfits with the girls in the bridal party, but of course they didn't need to be told this fifty times like the groomsmen. The girls picked a lavender color to be on all their dresses, which is usually what the vests and ties of the groomsmen also is. So we got vests straight from Liberace's rodeo clown days.
The best man does three things for the groom. #1. The bachelor party. #2. A toast during the wedding. #3. Stand around before the ceremony and try to help.
#1 was taken care of a month before the wedding date. Societal rules don't allow me to discuss the party in public, so I can't give details, suffice to say that it went well, Jeff saw a lot of old friends, and the Moroccan government will not be pressing any criminal charges.
#2 would be after the ceremony, so no need to think about it. It's just a massive public speaking obligation that almost always bombs.
#3 was what I was doing the whole morning of the wedding. Once you're in a wedding party, you feel partly responsible for everything that going on. For the most part the responsible thing to do on the wedding day is to shut up and let other people tell you what to do. Between the bride and groom and the bride's parents and the groom's parents and the bridal party and the caterer and the florist and the cake designer and the chocolatier and every female in attendance, there's more than enough opinions about how things should go. Just stand there, greet everyone you see, and be prepared to lift or assemble whatever needs lifting or assembling.
My pockets are normally loaded with about two pounds of ordinance, based on being able to do whatever's needed in most situations. In my left front pocket are my house keys, car keys, change, and the keycard I use to get into work. In the right front pocket are my lip balm, my trusty Swiss Army knife, and the newest pocket addition, a cell phone. The back right pocket has the wallet, and the back left only gets used when I have a paperback book I'm getting tired of holding. The only time I try not to have all this on me is when I'm going through a metal detector.
I didn't know if I was supposed to install all this hardware into my pockets for the wedding. This is a catered event, not a desert island. I left most of it in my jeans upstairs. I had the rings in my breast pocket, and I slipped my Swiss Army knife in a pocket, though. I'd rather lose a kidney than be without that.
A few minutes after we tuxed up, the groomsmen pictures were taken outside. There was a giant stump I joked that we should stand on as a stage, which ended up being what we did. The sky was darkening, and it was going to explode with rain in about 45 seconds, so these pictures needed to be quick.
Jeff had his gray patterned handkerchief (which matched his vest) poking out of his breast pocket. Brendan and I were each issued handkerchiefs of our own, which were thankfully regular white. I guess we could have dyed them, like what the girls did with their shoes to match their dresses, but that's a lot of work for something we're going to be blowing our noses on. Vinnie didn't have a handkerchief to stick out of his pocket. The rental agency never gave him one.
We'd get our pictures taken, our tuxes wouldn't match, and thus Jeff and Cindy's wedding would be irretrievably wrecked. It wouldn't, but we were trying to think like women, since as guys we're just thinking of unexpected ways to moon each other.
Only a little corner of the white hankies poked out. If we could somehow rip one in half, we'd be in business. But they were silk, and tough to rip.
Enter the knife! My scissors got folded out, and five snips later, my hanky was two smaller hankies. Vinnie and I stuffed them in, and we were a matching set again. I knew I'd have to cut something at the wedding. In your face ... whoever was telling me not to bring the knife.
Word got out of my 'magnificent achievement and ingenuity'. (It might have been coming from me.) The maid of honor's boyfriend checked in with me a couple times during the wedding, since he needed a sharp object for something or other. I forget what, but everyone walked away from the wedding alive and uncut, so he couldn't have used it for too much mischief. as well.
Becca the maid of honor gave me an index card with Cindy's vows on them. She wanted to read from the card, but her wedding dress foolishly wasn't designed with pocket space in mind. So I'd slip them to her.
Then Mike (our college friend and, today, wedding DJ) began asking around for duct tape. As useful as duct tape it, I don't carry it on me even on non-tux days (although one guy did make an entire tuxedo out of duct tape). But I had some in the car! I ran outside, dug in my pocket for car keys, and came up empty. Screw it: I went upstairs and put everything from my jeans in the tux. I'd probably need it all today.
My sister came up to me looking for lip balm! Yes, I had it. Becca's boyfriend came up for the knife again. Yes, I had it. Anyone need change for the phone, a corkscrew for some wine, a Blockbuster rental card, I had it. I was even able to fit a champagne glass wrapped in a napkin for stomping in the other breast pocket.
With me at full usefulness again, the ceremony could go off without a hitch. Brendan, Vinnie and I (along with Jeff when he had the time) were trying out a strategy to ensure a botch-free wedding. We were trying to think of everything that could go wrong with the wedding. Dropping the rings down the sewer, going to the altar drunk, switching the vows for Your Mama jokes.
Whatever we could think of would definitely never happen. I've realized that I can't predict the future, and I can't to such as extent that if I even say something that sounds like a prediction, it will never come true, because I'm just that unpsychic.
So we listed everything that could go wrong. Fistfights on stage, kleptomaniac monkeys, anyone vomiting during the ceremony. (We forgot to think of someone vomiting AFTER the ceremony, so that actually happened.) It's irregardless that we were having a great time giggling during this whole process, it was all for Jeff and Cindy's sake. By the time we got to the largest person at the reception swallowing the rings and us having to climb inside him to retrieve them, we figured most realistic scenarios were covered.
Just before the ceremony, we saw the chuppa being set up on the altar. It's a Jewish tradition: a wooden hutch with an ornate tarp erected over the altar to symbolize ... something. No one can decide what stomping on the glass means, so there's probably a couple dozen things the chuppa symbolizes.
The important thing was that its four poles were not stable, if you breathed on it wrong, a tent would fall down on half the bridal party, and no one had rehearsed with it before. Brendan, Vinnie and I had a job to do. Think of everything that could go wrong with the chuppa before the ceremony. Bumping into a pole, setting it on fire, getting tangled in the lace, kicking the stands. We're pretty good at this stuff, so we got most scenarios out of the way before the ceremony.
I went up to the altar with Jeff and the minister. Showtime. Everyone else would enter in some order I didn't pay attention to because I didn't need to. I had the rings, the vows, the glass, and about eighty other items in my pockets. If the ceremony called for a corkscrew opener or a Visa card, I was prepared.
During the ceremony, my table duties were realized. Cindy's vows came out of a pocket, the rings came out of a pocket, the empty ring box went back in a pocket, the glass and the napkin came out of a pocket. Yep, I'm a table.
Jeff put the glass on front of the chuppa and nearly stomped through the floor breaking it. He reached backwards for support, toward the chuppa. Uh oh, here's disaster in the making. Here's the America's Funniest Home Videos clip.
The chuppa stayed still, didn't fall. Jeff righted himself. Disaster was averted. I didn't imagine this possibility, but maybe Brendan or Vinnie did. Good job, guys.
I scooted in to pick up the napkin full of pain, and nearly put it in my pocket out of habit. As useful as I was trying to be, I'd skip this part of it. I put the napkin off in a corner, where I never saw it again. Hopefully that Barefoot Mass being conducted there the next day wasn't too inconvenienced.
Jeff and Cindy had to sit through two or three songs before they got to kiss, and then they got to walk down the aisle holding hands. They had about five seconds of private time at the end of the hall before I came by with Becca, here to remind them they wouldn't get any private time for many many more hours.
Becca and I had one last thing to do: toasts. Becca went first, with an honest, heartfelt remembrance of Cindy that counterbalanced mine by being without video game references. She started crying a bit, so I gave her half a handkerchief.
Jeff called me at work one day, and said he was going to propose to Cindy. They had been dating for a year and a half, and had moved in six months beforehand. He was going to ask her while they were on their way to shop for engagement rings, so it wouldn't be the biggest surprise in the world. But it was still nerve wracking. This would only be his third time proposing. The first time was to a Transformer, and the second was to a Playstation 2 copy of Dragon Warrior VII. It didn't work out either time.
Jeff was nervous and didn't know if he could go through with it smoothly. So he asked me to do it for him. We switch for the usual twin occasions - pranks, April Fool's Day, lie detectors. He'd lend me his glasses, I'd do the quick down-on-one-knee-open-the-ring-box bit, and then when she said yes, I'd run to the bathroom, we'd switch clothes, and real Jeff would take over.
Jeff was going to meet us right at Fountains of Wayne, where the proposal was going to take place, but his car broke down along the way. I didn't know this, so I proposed on the pre-established time frame, Cindy said yes, and I then kept on pretending I was Jeff until he managed to show up. AAA took their time getting to Jeff's car, and then Jeff had to call a cab. By the time he got to Fountains of Wayne, Cindy and I had already gone back home, so he had to call another cab. He finally got home, the door was locked, we had some music on inside pretty loud so we couldn't hear the doorbell, so it wasn't until around 10:00 P.M. when Jeff kicked in the door. He interrupted a very intense bout of ... Scrabble.
There was a little punching, a little crying, a little toaster throwing, but at the end of the day Jeff and Cindy were happily engaged, and the blood stains came out of my shirt.
I'm Jeff older brother, by a big two minutes, but it's felt like he's been the older one most of our lives. He was more active than me in high school, more social. In college we both did the radio station and newspaper and the improv troupe, but for the most part he did them first. He was the first to move out - two states away to boot. I do seem to reclaim the older brother status with overall job stability, though.
Now Jeff's the first to get married. This is a big one. I'm going to have to buy a house, throw my back out and get a prostate exam to balance the scales now.
It wasn't too long ago that the two of us thought we had pretty long odds of finding that right someone who really got us. Or tolerated us, which is just as good. Neither one of us do the bar scene, so we figured the odds were slim of meeting someone when you just sit around watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Jeff did just that, though. Through Jen at his old job, he got invited to a Buffy night, where Jen, several friends, and her roommate Cindy, got together to watch Buffy. Jeff sensed Cindy was one of those rare girls who got him (as well as tolerated him).
He had to act fast, before the all-crushing black hole of the Friend Zone turned the world platonic. So he battled the forces of the Friend Zone, and won, which has happened maybe three times in human history.
I've never seen Jeff as satisfied as when he's with Cindy. She makes him more fundamentally happy than I've ever seen him. And I know he proposed to her knowing he'd do what it takes to return this happiness. When Cindy accepted the hand of this unemployed video game reviewer, it made a closed circuit happiness loop that'll radiate enough heat to power Pittsburgh.
When she takes his name, Cindy's new name will be Cindy Ann Ryan, C.A.R. So Jeff's having his childhood dream come true today - marrying someone who can turn into a CAR.
There's something Jeff and I have never said to each other yet. We both know it, but it's something brothers just don't say to each other. Well, today I'm going to say it. Jeff ... I'm the cute one. In addition to that, I love you. And I love you Cindy, because you make Jeff so happy.
This is supposed to be a toast, so I should probably actually give one at some point. Everyone raise your glasses. May Jeff and Cindy be so happy for so long that they make the rest of us nauseous.