This weekend, Groomasaurus Gal and I made plans to take a trip back to her childhood stomping grounds – outside of St. Louis – to attend her cousin’s wedding. Now, we don’t go back there very often, and although I have met her St. Louis cousins a few times, I can’t really say I know them that well at all. This doesn’t mean I don’t get along with them – I do, in fact, and I like hanging out with them – but it does make me a bit of a “wedding stranger.” You know the sort, that new boyfriend of your old college roomate who you don’t really know, but since he’s with your college roomate of course he’s welcome at your wedding, even if he comes dressed in a green dinner jacket and smells like a salami left out in the sun.
Well, although I intend to show up to this wedding well-bathed and fittingly attired, those will still have no impact on my status as a “wedding stranger.” We’ve all been to weddings where we’re on the outside looking in, so we all know what it feels like to politely shake our heads and smile when people casually refer to inside jokes and family stories that have absolutely no meaning to us.
So, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to have an appointed wedding stranger greeter to make all those wedding strangers feel welcome. You could appoint that wonderfully gabby Aunt Mary – the one who never knew a stranger and could small talk a statue – to seek out these people and make sure they were having a good time and felt included. This may not be necessary for every wedding; for example, Groomasaurus Gal and I are having a small destination wedding where we know everyone very well. But for those weddings 75 people or larger, there’s bound to be a wedding stranger or two. And a greeter may put both them and you at ease.
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