First: 30 attendants. Seriously. 15 bridesmaids, 15 groomsmen, and assorted children on top of that. Each attendant couple came sloooooowly down the aisle, to slightly off-key organ music. The ceremony lasted about 45 minutes and 25 of that, easy, was this.

At the reception, the bride’s family members started essentially standing in line to ask me if I was pregnant. We’d been married three weeks, so even if we had promptly started trying to get pregnant I wouldn’t know yet. Also we’d been living together for four years before getting married. I lost track of how many times I was asked about my womb’s status.

I am a recovering alcoholic, and had to argue – literally, argue – with an uncle for ten minutes when he insisted on fetching our drinks but would not accept my request for plain tonic. “But with gin, right? No? Okay, vodka then!” Me: “I WILL GET MY OWN DRINK THANKS.” Him: “Wow, no need to be TOUCHY.”

The bride did not arrive at the reception for well over an hour – apparently she was sobbing because the hem of her gown got muddy at some point, and this delayed the pictures. We were all starving when the wedding party finally got there.

My husband, his parents, and I were seated with the bride’s parents, at a supposedly desirable table. Right next to the speaker proving music for an enormous reception hall. We couldn’t hear each other speak, and communicated via signs for two hours.

The best man’s toast was all about how he and the groom and their buddies went to Mexico and you could tell that the groom was really in love with his future bride because he didn’t do anything with the Mexican prostitutes. Swear to God. All the other toasts and the MC’s patter were all sexist jokes from the 1950′s, essentially about how now she can withhold sex if he doesn’t give her enough spending money. The bride, BTW, has a job, and it brings in more money than her husband’s.

2nd wedding: My dear best friend married the man of her dreams last year. Favorite moments from the entire weekend; the minister yelling (yes YELLING) at us during rehearsal that NOT ONE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING PARTY WILL DRINK ALCOHOL BEFORE THE WEDDING! And if he smelled alcohol on anyone’s breath, that person would be kicked out of the wedding, even if that person was the bride or groom (not sure how the ceremony would go…) and we’d better not go behind the dumpster to drink either (who does that?). Day of the wedding…Sign in the church pointed out that the bathrooms were downstairs. Problem…stairs led to bride’s dressing room. Even with the MOH poised at the top of the stairs, multiple guests saw the bride’s panties! One of the bride’s aunts became quite angry she couldn’t use the bathroom (she was pointed to the alternate restrooms, but refused to use them) and threatened to return her present to the bride and groom. Also, one of the bridesmaids is physically disabled and on crutches. During the rehearsal, my friend practiced going down the aisle to make sure she could do it without any problems. Day of the wedding, the MOB rolls out a runner that NO ONE had ever seen before and my friend had a heck of a time trying to walk/slide down the aisle.

Ed — OK, this is where my very limited theological knowledge fails me. (I spend a lot of my time at church gritting my teeth and wondering why the Protestants get all the good music — you know, the important stuff!) If you are a LEM in the Episcopal church, will the Catholic priest let you serve at a Catholic wedding? I would think maybe so, seeing as the priest who did our wedding was willing to let my husband, who is ELCA Lutheran, take communion if my husband wished to do so. (He did not.) That was something that was at the discretion of the priest; I am wondering if the EM stuff would be as well.

We had our wedding at my husband’s church with his pastor co-officiating. When I asked Fr Tim about it, saying I thought the ceremony had to be in a Catholic church, he said, “It has to be where I say it has to be.”

Ah, power!