A few things I liked about the wedding.

1) There were vases of water placed on the headtable so the bridesmaids could put their bouquets in water to save them. Great idea.

2) I liked the open seating, because you could sit next to who you wanted to. Although I didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t explained to us when we entered, so we did scurry around a little bit asking where we were supposed to sit. Other than the confusion, it was a good idea.

3) I really liked the idea of a wedding Web site, because we didn’t know much about the groom and we could read up about him and his background. Plus we had a better sense of how they met, and we could download all the directions to the church and reception.

4) They repeated the directions to the reception hall on the back of the wedding program. This was great for people who forgot to bring the directions with them, and a nice touch.

5) The main color for the wedding was black, and all the bridesmaids’ dresses were black, which makes it more likely they will be used again. This seems less wasteful and makes it easier for bridesmaids to swallow buying a dress if there’s a chance they can wear it again. And the groomsmen weren’t wearing ridiculously colored vests and bowties. Often you go to weddings and the bridesmaids dresses are powder blue and so are the groomsmens’ vests and ties, and it looks like a bad 80s high school prom.

Gotta love a wedding buffet – Maybe you’re a frou-frou, East-coast blueblood who insists on a sit-down, surf-and-turf dinner served by garcons in tuxes. If so, that’s perfectly okay. However, I grew up in the Midwest, and we’re often a bit more informal when it comes to dining at our weddings. So when I discovered that we were eating buffet style and they were serving fall-off-the-bone BBQ ribs, garlic mashed potatoes, a wonderful caesar salad, prime rib and a dozen other calorie-laiden foods, I was giddy. I don’t like to wait for my food, plus since I have a farily elevated metabolism (think lab-rat, Energizer-bunny fast) and hence large appetite, I’m usually left wanting when someone else chooses how much is on my plate (Groomasaurus Gal hates when I whine about being hungry after what she thought was a big meal). That said, buffets are totally my style, and this one, although not gourmet-quality, definitely hit the spot. We’re having a buffet at our wedding. Done and done.

The candy bar/buffet is the best wedding innovation since the strap-on bowtie – When all my friends were getting married in their 20s, nobody put out candy for guest to nibble on, let alone tasty high-end stuff that you see at weddings now. When I walked through the door on Friday night, I happened upon a veritable cornocopia of Jelly Bellys, Lindt truffles, Resees PB cups, chocolate-covered creme drops and a dozen or so other sugary delights. Within 15 minutes, me and the rest of the early arrivals were bouncing off the walls in a sugar-induced frenzy, and happy for it. The candy buffet is da bomb.

The wedding photo booth is a surprisingly good idea - If you would have told me this beforehand, I would have snorted and marked you for a hopeless bridezilla who buys any lame-ass idea espoused by Martha Stewart Weddings, The Knot and Brides magazine (don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they have some good ideas, too, but they do go a bit overboard at times). It’s just that the wedding photo booth thing seems to be such a trend/fad that it seems to me to be a silly cliche that would quickly go out of style. Boy was I wrong. As the night went on, not only were couples getting their photos snapped, but entire family units, cousins, neices and nephews, all sorts of relations were piling into the booth, and I watched it shake and shimmy as the people inside laughed and gestured at the camera. In fact, the booth became something of a gathering place, much like the kitchen at a housewarming party. I had more fun there than on the dancefloor (and I love to dance, although I do suffer from white man’s disease on the dancefloor and have been known to bite my lower lip when I’m gettin jiggy). So to any bridezilla who I may have offended, I stand corrected and admit the error of my ways.

Kudos for cutting out some silly traditions – I’ve really never been one for the staged traditions like cutting the cake (and then either politely feeding it to each other or stuffing it down each other’s blowhole), tossing the garter (odd aside: wasn’t Madonna the last person to wear garters in public, circa the Like a Virgin tour) and throwing the bouquet. This bride and groom dispensed with the first two, which I found refreshing. And although they did toss the bouquet, it did serve as a moment of entertainment when that one girl (there’s always one at every wedding) who is a little kooky, a little dramatic, sort of the family black sheep, tends to drink too much too early, been through a couple husbands … yeah, well she positioned herself behind the bride and lunged at the bouquet like the inside linebacker for the Bears and scooped it off the floor before anyone could get near it. Well done, and very entertaining.

Wonderful people – I really like Groomasaurus Gal’s family. They’re loving, friendly, sincere people who make you feel welcome even though I see them once in a blue moon, and even though her aunt, uncle and cousins all were celebrating the wedding of the youngest daughter, they went out of their way to include us and give us their time and attention (which is in short supply at a wedding for the mom and dad of the bride as well as the wedding party). Thank you from the bottom of my heart for inviting us and making us feel welcome.

… the bride and groom’s mode of transportation would be a Ferrarri, which means we would actually be late to the ceremony because you can’t outrun a two-way radio.

… the reception meal would consist of steak, Budweiser and Twinkies.

… the lovely “Here Comes the Bride” music would be replaced by something like Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” or another completely inappropriate song.

… the ceremony would take place in a barn, because we’d forget to book the church.

… the ring bearer would be our dog, Drillbit, who halfway down the aisle/barn floor would mistake the mother-of-the-bride’s hat for a woodland creature and lose the rings as he lunged for her head.

… our self-inscribed vows would be peppered with modifiers like “awesome,” “stoked,” and “killer.”

… the apparel of choice would be a denim version of dress casual.

… the invitations would be illegible missives scrawled on our “From the Desk of…” notepaper.

… every part of the service would conclude with high-fives among bridesmaids and groomsmen.

… the reception would last 24 hours, after which we would need to be removed by ambulance.

… the wedding colors would be surprisingly similar to those of our college alma mater.

… we’d recruit our best guy friends to help out, who would offer fabulous (i.e., ridiculous and self-serving) ideas like pot brownies instead of cake, see-through bridesmaid dresses and holding the reception on a floating casino.

… no women would attend, because they never liked going to our alcohol-soaked, wiener-fest frat parties in college in the first place, and the only difference between this and those sad galas is that now we’re older, heavier and have less hair. Not exactly an improvement.

Hopefully we wouldn’t be this bad, but you never know what happens when you put a bunch of guys together to plan something. You may get something with the spectacle and energy of the Olympic opening ceremonies. Or it may have all the spontaneity and drama of an office birthday party.

Groomasaurus Gal and I wanted to have a wedding that is a bit out of the ordinary and that allowed all our friends and family to really relax and enjoy the time with each other. Thus we hatched up our plan to have a destination wedding in Mexico. However, knowing that budgets are tight these days, we have taken advantage of quite a few timeshare weeks that my family has stored up so that most people won’t have to pay for their room for the week; they just have to cover their airfare and food. And because the rooms all have kitchens, our guest can eat in if they like and save more money.

Simply put, we didn’t want to make people have to opt out of our wedding because they couldn’t afford it. I bring this up because today we were talking with a friend and she mentioned she was going to be a bridesmaid next weekend (1 of 9) in an over-the-top wedding that is costing its participants quite a bit of coin, with expensive dresses, flights, lodging in downtown Boston, 4 days of events (many of which are at extra cost to the participants/attendees), etc. Our friend couldn’t even attend the bridal shower/bachlorette party because it was going to cost each individual around $2k to attend.

Now, some people can afford these things, and if that’s you, more power to you. But if you know not everyone who you invite can afford all this, then why plan something that is instantly going to make people you care about feel left out. It ticked me off a bit when I heard about this, because I feld bad for our friend, and it made me think of what’s really important at a wedding: being able to share the moment with the people you care about most. When money starts to screw that up, it’s time to reassess.