HOW TO OFFICIATE A WEDDING (SORTA)

Hello, Hello, and Hello Again, all of you out there in the land of the internet. As promised, here is the much delayed, much anticipated breakdown of my very first and (possibly) only experience as a MASTER OF CEREMONIES at a wedding!

When I last checked in with you, I was a little on the sweaty side- and granted, while most of this sweat came from various tasks of manual labor that I was completing in the semi-wilderness, coupled with the heat and humidity from the early August air, much of that sweat also came as a result of having to write wedding vows for two people who are decidedly NOT ME.

Well, Summer came and went and the literal sweat has dried, only to be replaced by that weird sweat that is caused by trying to write screenplays and walking around in the cold with one too many layers on. But I’ve said too much. You’re here because you may still be wondering about how the hell my little sister’s wedding went.

And the answer, in both the literal and figurative sense, is…SWIMMINGLY. I knocked out the vows in the final two days before the wedding, and submitted them to the appropriate parties, who largely approved. I think my initial draft was a little on the heavy handed side- I talked a lot about the obligations that come with marriage, which is something I wholeheartedly believe in with a solid 98 percent of my little heart.

However, the conclusion was reached that too much talk of commitment and obligation is, like, somewhat of a boner killer at a nice airy summer wedding. And ultimately, I agreed with that. But the vows and address that I came up with remained largely intact.

And it’s here that I’d like to tell you a bit about how all-fired nervous I was:

I was more nervous than I’ve ever been. When I say I’m somewhat of a performer, I mean just that- I’m somewhat of a performer. Having people’s eyes on me has a tendency to bring out a side of my personality that doesn’t necessarily rear its hammy head in other situations. I get kinda eloquent and adopt this weird gravitas that has led several people to suggest I pursue a career as a minister.

I also get extremely itchy, particularly before and after the actual performance is performed. In practice, I like being onstage. I’m comfortable there. In theory, I hate it like it’s my awkward co-worker who invites himself out to the bar and talks really weird and drinks one too many Cabo Wabos.

This is where I thank my lucky stars for the real official of the wedding, my uncle, who is the kind of guy who is comfortable with everything in such a way that makes looking comfortable look easy.

The first mistake I made was trying to memorize the remarks I’d only completed less than a day beforehand. This added greatly to my sense of self-consciousness, because the more I read the words I’d written, the more they sounded inorganic and overthought. And of course this led to me trying to edit the words I’d written and was trying to memorize as I was trying to memorize them. So, basically, I had eighteen working drafts of my speech bumping around in my head all at once, right up until the time I was standing in front of everybody. So, with everyone sitting there, waiting for the pleasant violin introit to end and my (hopefully) profound, yet still pleasant, benediction-y thing to begin, I had to basically choose exactly which words I was gonna say. And the words came out fine, though I must say I stumbled enough so that rather a few people commented on the fact that “I seemed nervous” after the event. But I held it together, and like I said, good old rookie Justice of the Peace Uncle Sam (yes, his name is Sam) came through with some genius off the cuff asides that, among other things, compared the wedding to that of Prince William and Kate Middleton- quips which were both very timely and deftly satirical of the kind of New England aw-shucks self-importance that seems to be deeply bred into us.

So, all in all, things went well. I also got to play emcee at the reception. This was easier, thanks in no small part to the presence of beer- I just grabbed the mic and tried to speak as loudly and clearly as I could. My toast was much better than my benediction, honestly. I just spoke about how, in a world where one can’t choose one’s family and where one certainly can’t choose one’s in-laws, I felt intensely lucky to have both a little sister and a brother in law who I would absolutely be honored to choose to be my very good friends.

After that, there was a lot of very successful dancing. The dancing was so successful, in fact, that my dad even partook. Everyone seemed to leave with an overall sense that it was a very high quality sort of wedding. My sister maintains, with absolute and unwavering confidence that it was, in fact, “easily the best fucking wedding ever.”

And on the one hand, you might say she’s biased. But on the other, it was her wedding, which means that she’s the only one who really ought to feel that way, so having her feel like she had “the best fucking wedding ever” is the only real litmus for how much of a success the whole party really was.

Whew. So, there you have it. It only took me four plus months to get this out there, but I feel like it was pretty worth it. In the meantime, I am working on some new blog related thoughts that might someday come to you via this here World Wide Internet. Until then, I’m Alexander Merrill, signing off from the land of “Sex with Me Is Rad,” the blog that likes to hit you with its best shot… even if that best shot is sometimes several months in the making!