The Wedding Crashers

I went to a wedding today and had a very fun, and eventful, night.  In fact, I haven't had this much fun since Fender and Kelly's wedding night, which was about two and a half years ago.  I think more people I know need to get married, otherwise my life is extremely dull and boring.  Before I tell you why the night was so eventful though, I would just like to say congratulations to Michelle and Joe Szparaga.  May your days together be long and your nights just as pleasant.  Okay, now that that is out of the way, on with the evening!

The day started off innocently enough.  I arrived at Tina's Country House with my sister and my parents.  As we walked up to the building, I immediately saw Fender and Kelly.  I walked over and talked with them until the ceremony started.  The ceremony was held outside and it was very nice.  If I ever get married (which will probably never happen), I would like it to be outside as well.  Anyway, if you've ever been to a wedding before, you know the basic outline of the ceremony.  Various poetic things are said by the minister, some symbolic stuff is done, vows are exchanged by the bride and groom, more words are said, and then the I do's with the kiss at the end.  Basically, a process that should take all of five minute is dragged out to be a much longer ordeal (I'm kidding, of course).  It really wasn't that long, it only lasted about thirty minutes.  Someone told me that a traditional Catholic ceremony can last over two hours, so I think that thirty minutes is a nice compromise.  In any event, the most memorial part of the ceremony, at least for me anyways, was at the end.  When everything was said and done, the Star Wars theme played to usher everyone into the banquet hall, which was conveniently located right next to the outdoor ceremony (and that's another thing to keep in mind if I ever do get married, have the ceremony/reception right next to one another).  And in there, my friends, is where the fun really began.

I arrived at the banquet hall and found out that I had to go to table 11.  I asked myself, "why didn't they just make table 10 a little bigger?"  Then I thought, "no, these go to 11" and went to sit down at my table (you get 11 internets if you can guess the movie reference before clicking here).  Anyway, I sat down at table 11 with my sister, my parents, Fender and Kelly.  We had to wait a little while for the wedding party, they were off somewhere taking pictures.  When they finally came in, they stood in front of their table and the DJ requested that everyone go up and greet the wedding party.  Everyone got up, formed a line around the room, and went up to each person in the wedding party to greet them in whatever manner they deemed appropriate  (which I thought was a very nice touch to start off the reception).  Shortly after everyone got back to their seats, the best man and the bridesmaid gave their speeches.  I didn't know the bridesmaid, but she gave a wonderfully  heartfelt speech.  I did know the best man though, he was none other than Michael Pienta.  He started the speech off as if he was giving a eulogy for Joe, which got a laugh out of the crowd.  I don't remember much else about the speech, other than he ended it with "and may the force be with you."  I was tempted to shout "Knibb High football rules!" when he finished, but I didn't want to ruin the moment.  Pienta did a great job though, I didn't have the balls to give a speech at Fender and Kelly's wedding when I was the best man.

After the greetings and the speeches were over, we had dinner.  The dinner was very good, but one particular item caught my attention.  That item was the meatballs.  Now, I don't even like meatballs, so why would that particular item catch my attention?  Well, I jokingly said to my sister that it would be funny if she reenacted this scene with the aforementioned best man. Frankly, I should have known better because she did just that.  She told Pienta to close his eyes and put out his hands.  He did so and then she put the meatballs in his hands and said "I'm paying you in meatballs."  I don't know if he got the reference, but he took it like a champ.  He just walked away to dispose of the meatballs and clean off his hands.  That really surprised me though, I really thought that he was going to throw the meatballs back in her face or something.  That is why Pienta was the best man and he showed why right there.

After everyone got done eating, there was dancing, of course.  Now, I don't dance, so I stayed in my seat and talked to my sister, Fender and Kelly.  Fender, my sister and I debated on going over to the other wedding party and crashing that wedding, but I decided against it when I realized that I have no game whatsoever.  We did come up with a funny story though.  To make it seem like we were a part of that family, my sister came up with the idea of saying that we were distant cousins and then referencing an uncle (we'll call him Uncle So-and-so because I don't remember the name we were going to use).  To make her story seem more legit, I added "remember that game Uncle So-and-so used to play with us, the one where he told us to reach into his pocket to find the snake?"  So then my sister said, "yeah, and we never could get the snake to come out."  And then Fender said, "yeah, he told us it must have crawled down his leg!"  That story would have gotten us in for sure.  It was bulletproof, I tell you, bulletproof....

And now, we have finally reached the part that truly made this night unforgettable.  It is the crescendo, if you will, of my entire time spent at the wedding.  I don't think that I can ever top this at any wedding that I ever go to.  It is something that I will look back on and remember fondly for as long as I live.  Here's what happened.

Michelle just got done throwing the bouquet to some lucky girl.  Now it was Joe's turn to throw the garter to some single guy.  If you don't already know, whoever catches the garter has to do something with the girl who caught the bouquet.  Now, I am extremely shy, and I didn't think anyone would even notice if I didn't go up there, so I remained in my seat to watch this event unfold.  Joe (or was it Frank?), however, got on the microphone and called me out.  I wasn't going up though, so I stayed in my seat.  Well, Joe and Pienta started coming for me, so I got up and sprinted to the door.  As soon as I got outside, I ran as fast as my legs would go.  I heard Joe and Pienta behind me, but I didn't look back.  To quote Forrest Gump, "I was running."  All of a sudden, some guy came up on the left of me.  I thought, "how the hell did Joe or Mike catch up to me that quick?"  It wasn't Joe or Mike though.  It was some random guy, from the other wedding party, drinking a beer in the parking lot (for what reason, I don't know).  He was coming right for me, so I put a juke move on him that would have made Barry Sanders proud and faked him out.  His reaction to the fake out was to throw the liquid in his beer mug at me.  The liquid soaked the entire upper left side of my chest.  I started running again immediately after I got soaked, and I'm lucky that I did because then he threw his beer mug at me.  The beer mug hit me in the upper part of my back, but by then I was going close to full speed again, so it just barely grazed me.  I kept running after it hit me though because I didn't know what the guy was going to do next.

I didn't see this part, but Joe and Mike told me this.  They saw the guy throw the liquid at me and yelled out at him just before he was about to throw the mug.  After he threw the mug, they stopped him and asked him why he did that.  Well, I guess he thought that they were chasing me because I stole something from the wedding.  They set him straight on that though and then went back inside to finishing the throwing of the garter.  By the time I got back in, which was only about a few minutes later, it was over.  The garter had been thrown.  I successfully got out of the garter toss and now I have an interesting story to tell about how I did it!  I did have a small mark on my back where the mug hit me, but it didn't hurt very much.  No blood, no foul, is what I always say.  All in all, it was a really enjoyable night and I look forward to the next wedding that I attend.