I Now Pronounce You...

For those of you who have had a wedding I recently attended or have a wedding coming up, the following is in no way a comment on your specific event. Yours was (or will be) beautiful. This is just a comment on weddings in general and was inspired by current affairs, so please don't be offended. If you are offended, then your cake was bland.

Weddings are fascinating. Not so much to watch, but the fact that they’re so popular. They’ve existed forever, but people still celebrate them as if the idea is brand new. And celebrate them we do. In this country alone they're a $5 trillion a month industry. Over the course of human history, weddings fall only slightly behind the wheel in terms of overall approval rating.

You’d think by now weddings would be more like getting an HD TV. If you don’t have an HD TV at this point, you probably get a lot of confused looks and demeaning comments from those around you (I’m not the only one who suffers through these, right?). Sadly, that part is similar to getting married. If you reach a certain age without marrying, then people start to think something’s wrong. However, no matter how long people think you need to “hurry up and get married,” they will treat you like royalty when the big day finally comes.

Once you get an HD TV, though, could you envision inviting 200 of your closest friends and family members to your house to see it, and expect them to bring gifts? Would you rent or buy clothes for the occasion? Even if you offered them free food and booze, would they attend your HD TV party? Only if you invited people to watch the Super Bowl on your HD TV could you get, maybe, 30 people to come over, but they would still somehow watch the Super Bowl if your HD TV didn’t exist. Probably on their own HD TV.

And yet weddings have this weird hold over us. Look at the Royal Wedding earlier this year. All of England stopped what it was doing to watch it, not to mention way more Americans than what should have. If that many people are going to watch a wedding, shouldn't they do so because they expect to see something different? Like a monkey performing the ceremony, the bridesmaids and groomsmen being replaced by convicts who were brought up on charges of arson and public indecency, or the attendees being divided up not according to whether they know the bride or groom, but by playground basketball rules – shirts and skins.

Granted, weddings haven’t looked exactly the same over the decades. Destination weddings became really popular for a while and are still the preference for a significant number of people. More recently, wedding parties have been taping themselves doing choreographed dances and uploading the videos to the Internet, though this is done so much now that it feels like it’s been going on since the mid-80s. Despite these changes to the procedure, the end result is still the same. Which is why I think more and more states, like New York, are legalizing gay marriage.

You probably think it has something to do with our evolution as a society, and the desire to grant people equal rights no matter their sexual preference. Well, that might have a little something to do with it. But I think it has more to do with all of us just wanting to see some variety. Especially now during the height of wedding season.

I guarantee at least one member of the New York Senate looked at his or her colleagues during the voting process a couple of weeks ago and said, “If I have to attend one more straight wedding this summer, I’m going to shoot myself.” (It was either that or they finally buckled from the threat of celebrities who have sworn they wouldn’t marry until everyone has the right to. Granting equal rights to all mankind is a nice little motivator, but it’s no match for seeing Brad and Angelina finally tie the knot!)

Besides just the variety, think how much easier it would be to attend a gay wedding. If my wife ever says to me, “We have six weddings to attend this year, but the fourth one is a ceremony for two dudes,” my response would be, "Sweet! Our gift can be beer."

Many critics of same sex marriage fear the next form of unions that states will recognize will be between people and animals. First of all, I can't begin to imagine how insulting that is to gay people. Two consenting adults marrying each other is just one step away from an adult marrying the thing that chews on my socks and pees in the yard? And keep in mind, if that thing – my dog – pees in the yard, he’s behaving himself.

But secondly, if people do start marrying animals, I'm fully on board with it. If we get a stack of invitations that include three gay weddings, four celebrity weddings, and one wedding in which Led Zepplin will reunite to play at the reception, I’m still looking most forward to a human/animal ceremony. The only thing I can think of that might create a better story to tell afterwards would be a human/food wedding (see the post immediately below this one).

You’re probably thinking to yourself, "But if you got an invitation from someone who was marrying an animal, wouldn't you be concerned for that person's mental health?" Of course I would, which is why I hope that invitation would come from one of my wife's friends.

Let’s face facts – we all love weddings and we’ll always go to weddings. We’ll tell the bride how beautiful she looks and how happy we are for her (or him) and the groom. We’ll smile and take pictures and wish them a lifetime of joy and togetherness. But the only thing that people are thinking while they’re watching the ceremony is, “There better be an open bar or I’m gonna cut somebody.”

So if weddings suddenly become a bit more captivating by featuring a man marrying an orangutan or a ham sandwich, what’s the harm in that? It’s all about that person’s happiness.

And my entertainment.