Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like in the groom’s mind on the day of the wedding?
No?
Well, ah, that’s a little awkward because that’s what’s on the agenda for this blog post.
Let’s face it, a wedding isn’t something you do every day. It’s something you plan for, you organize, and when the day arrives, you hope it will be everything you wished it would be.
And I can’t speak for the bride, but for the groom it’s stressful.
At least for this groom.
I mean, hey, I’m the guy who gets stressed when they change the menu at McDonalds or I have to watch a Game of Thrones episode.
When people would ask if I was excited, I would tell the truth. “I wasn’t, yet.”
But when the day arrived, despite my stress levels being so high, I think I my entire suit was dripping with sweat, I actually did feel excited. I couldn’t wait to see The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World in her wedding dress and I couldn’t wait to officially be her husband.
The stress, though, came from a few things. Unlike my first wedding, where I simply showed up and smiled a lot, this time I had jobs to do!
First, I had to do a speech in front of about 150 people and it had to be a great speech that made people laugh and cry, but I had no ability to memorize that many words (hell, I still can’t sing our national anthem without forgetting if we still praise the queen or if that had been replaced by some indigenous people reference or ode to the LGBT community), and I didn’t want to read from a written script since i wanted to speak from the heart, but if I did that, then I might forget to thank someone or mind-blank on a name or simply start laughing hysterically!
So, somehow, I would have to say something amazing, off-the-cuff and not throw up at any point in the speech. Yeah. Not easy to do.
Then there was the whole meeting and greeting everyone. Sadly, my idea of setting up a rope line and hiring a greeter was not meet with a lot of enthusiasm. Nor was the idea that I hide in the bathroom stall until someone called my name and said the bride was waiting for me at the alter.
No, I was supposed to say hi to everyone, give them some directions on on where to go, and remember their names. The latter caused me all kinds of grief since I feared that mental state would be so bad, I would barely remember my own name. I had a great fear that someone I’d known for 50 years would walk up to me, and I would say, hi, errr, uhm… you.
Lastly, there was this, whole, you know, wedding thing. What if everyone could see how much i was swearing in my suit? What if I buggered up the vows or when asked if I do, I forgot how to say, I do?
What if i fainted at the alter? Farted? Giggled? What if The-Youngest had an attack of goofiness and did a clown walk in with his mom? What if it rained and rain leaked through the roof and dripped down my back at the moment I was to kiss the bride and instead head butted her as I yelled, what the f*ck?
So you see, at the end of the day, I just wanted it to be the best wedding a bride could ever have. I wanted The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World to remember this day with fondness and not in tears while talking to a therapist (or criminal lawyer if she murdered me.)
And how did it all go, you ask?
Oh, boy, were there some surprises.
Good and bad.