Weddings are solemn events - until the reception

It seems everyone loves a wedding. Unless, of course, the ones paying for it, which at this point in time may reach the starting salary of a National Football League first-round draft pick.

Still, it is an exciting day and one which may be just around the corner as we head into the wedding season. Come on, who would miss the opportunity to see two reasonable families coming together to witness a couple participating in a meaningful ceremony which will culminate at the end of a long day in a food fight, with chicken wings flying across the tables? It can resemble a legislative session in the Venezuelan assembly.

If that’s not enough, it might be your last chance to hear the most nauseating lyrics in history, as guests groan during the first dance to, “Precious and few are the moments we two can share….”

But if you are involved in planning a wedding, let’s get the biggest headache over with, the guest list. No document in the history of mankind has been so contentious as this piece of paper that will be crossed out, inked over, shredded and spit upon like a common criminal. Well, maybe the congressional record. Prozac was invented just for these types of occasions.

Oh, it starts out reasonably enough. You know, the families split the numbers down the middle. There are so many guests allotted for the bride’s side and so many guests for the groom’s side. This is the A List. Family comes first, but when you get into the bio mom, the stepmom, the stepdad, the test tube mom, the sperm donor dad, the odd uncle who can’t stop jingling loose change in his pocket, and the aunt who hasn’t spoken to anyone since she filed a police report claiming someone poisoned her hot dog at the annual family reunion, well, it gets a bit tricky.

Then there is the category if you invite one person then you have to invite the other people in your family lest they feel slighted, which incidentally was the real cause of a falling out and a restraining order.

Now there’s the B List, which would be considered the fillers; these are people to be called upon if someone declines an invitation.

You wouldn’t want an empty church, after all. This is never a problem since these people will attend anything at a drop of a hat, if there is free food and alcohol. I know this from personal experience and have learned to have a ready-for-wedding outfit at the back of my closet. Also there are plenty of folks out on the highway you can just corral into the church.

But once all reason has gone by the wayside, there is the actual ceremony itself. Well, that and a few other things like the caterer, florists, engravers, tailors, dresses, people who make the little figures on top of the cake, the band, the napkin people, and we can’t forget the wedding planner. Yeah, Las Vegas looks pretty good. All you need is the right vending machine and you are just a package of rice away from the I do’s.

Anyway, that big day finally arrives when the couple stands in front of their family and friends to exchange a lifetime commitment to each other.

It’s a sobering occasion. Well, at least until the reception.

I know the groom’s family sits down front on one side of the aisle.

Most of them are awestruck by the solemn, intimate details; they are prepared to focus on stuff like the one long strand of hair sticking out from the side of the bride’s neck.

And of course the bride’s family is just as overwhelmed, mostly by the fact that she was able to find the only deadbeat to wed in the county.

Yet it’s not all as bad as I paint it to be. But still Las Vegas might just be the refund you are looking for.

For whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas - or not.