Groomasaurs Gal and I were again watching garbage TV on a Friday night. This is beginning to become an ugly trend, but like any addiction, it’s very hard to break. Also like any other addiction, it has its deleterious side effects, in this case loss of sleep, reduced attention span and a propensity to scream at inanimate objects (i.e., a rigid TV screen) that coincides with a false belief that you can change events that happened 1,000 miles away about 3 months ago.
This time, we were mainlining Say Yes to the Dress and another show about people who run a wedding chapel in Vegas. The latter was actually a good show, mostly because of one couple who appeared on the episode. They were a military couple who have been dating for a few years but are stationed on different bases and got married so the military would station them in the same place. But although this was much more than a wedding of convenience, the two of them had not planned a thing and showed up to the chapel wanting to get married the next day in full wedding dress (white gown and tux). You could tell how much these two people adored each other, and the fact that their wedding was spur-of-the-minute didn’t take away from how much they obviously loved each other.
I’m going to stop here so this doesn’t turn to mush and I lose my Manly Dude Club Card, but I was struck by how the spontaneous nature of their wedding actually made it so much more refreshing and poignant than weddings that have been planned to death. It’ almost like there’s so much emphasis on hammering out all the details and locking things in that once you’re finished, it runs like a military maneuver and not a romantic occasion.
I was thinking that there’s got to be a happy medium, where you have your ducks lined up in a row but you leave some room for people to freely express themselves. If you’re really adventurous, you could have a half-hour open mike during the reception where people can come up and tell fun, G-rated stories about the two of you. Or you could tell unrehearsed stories about each other. Or you could each plan something for each other that happens sometime during the day that would be a surprise to the other person (anyone who saw the musicians appear in the wedding scene in “Love Actually” knows exactly what I’m talking about). Just something to add an element of good surprise (god knows enough glitches happen during a wedding) to your wedding day.
Would love your feedback on this…
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Sure there’s a happy medium. There’s lots of ways to provide the framework for fun at the reception without detailing specifics, which would of course mostly be impossible. Spontaneity cannot be planned, and as long as the sentiment and flavor is always on how wonderful it is that the bride and groom are joining their lives together, then structure away. You can stage all kinds of fun, but you never know just how entertaining the focus is going to be during and after the actual experience eg: that choreographed first dance, a “Newly Weds Game, or a pass-the-mic session.
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