Wedding flashback #2 — 2010: Plan for a perfect wedding then wait for the problems

Group Portrait: A Wedding Celebration, by Gillis van Tilborgh (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     My boy is getting married today, meaning that EGD needs to operate on automatic pilot for a while. Luckily, I've written a number of columns on the subject, including this one, which is extra apt because ... actually, no time to go into details now. Let's put it this way: my observation that there is always a glitch or two when trying to pull off a wedding is not refuted by current events. Though as always, everything will work out fine in the end. I hope.

     By 50, a man should have played a role in a few weddings, and I've been involved in my share. I've hosted two, one for my brother at my apartment on Logan Blvd., one for a pair of readers at the Willis Tower Skydeck. I've been a best man and a groomsman and helped throw a surprise bachelor party at a bar in New York City. Not to mention the many weddings I've attended as a guest, including one atop the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier and, of course, my own gilded affair in the Babylonian splendor of the Hotel Intercontinental in downtown Chicago.
     My involvement in these weddings has left me with one central piece of wedding wisdom that I impart to all prospective brides — something those brides-to-be whose wedding dresses went up in flames Wednesday at Eva's Bridals of Oak Lawn learned big-time, but which holds true for every wedding and deserves being stated whenever possible:
     Something always goes wrong.
     Always, always, always.
     Oh, I suppose the most casual affair — a quick exchange of vows in the Cook County Clerk's office — can go off without a hitch. But anything more complex than that — plan to open a jar of nuts and beat a tambourine afterward — and the possibilities for screw-ups swiftly multiply.
     This of course is completely opposite to the standard bride's goal of a "perfect" wedding, whatever her idea of perfect might be, from arriving in Cinderella's glass carriage in a cloud of doves at a ceremony officiated by Mickey Mouse, to standing barefoot behind the counter at the McDonald's where you met your beau.
     These brides operate under the false impression that just because they've planned something for months and paid an ungodly sum of money for it, therefore they can expect everything to come off without a hitch.
     That's not how life works
     At our wedding, I wasn't hoping for perfect — guys seldom do. A guy, if he's marrying the right person, will be happy if his bride shows up. I was content to let my bride plan the wedding of her dreams, limiting my participation to a few symbolic contributions which consisted, if I recall, of a) putting carrot soup on the menu. (I like carrot soup) and b) insisting that, if we were going to have a band, it had to be a good band.
     Carrot soup is easy. And a good band is attainable, if you spend enough. But "perfect" is another matter entirely. "Perfect" is generally synonymous with "impossible." Oh, you can bowl 300 or pitch a perfect game, but with something as complex as a wedding, with the flowers and the chapel and the reception and the music and the meal and the guests, the odds of it all coming off perfectly are scant.
     Expecting wedding perfection is a recipe for disaster because there are so many things that can go wrong. A colleague and his wife asked for their wedding cake to be "creme" and it showed up "green" -- say the words out loud. A wedding cake with mint green icing.
     They laughed — which is key. The secret to a perfect wedding is not guaranteeing that everything unfolds perfectly — it won't — but in ignoring or shrugging off imperfections.
     I was immensely proud that my bride, when she opened the box from the florist containing her bouquet, calmly noted that it was not the round bouquet she ordered, but a draped nosegay. Some brides would have lost it at this point, but she observed that they were still beautiful flowers and it was too late to do anything. An even-keeled acceptance that probably explains how she could marry me in the first place, and that has served us well, lo these past 20 years.
     You can plan for perfect. You may think of your wedding as a stage play — you may write a script, plan various entrances and exits.
     But once it is happening, you must abruptly shift, abandoning the stage play paradigm, jettisoning hopes of "perfect," and view it as a party. You know how parties work — you plan, then let the thing unfold.
     That way, if something happens that's not in the script — your aged uncle stands up in the middle of the vows and begins a rambling toast, or your wedding dress is burned up in a fire — you adapt. The uncle is coaxed to his seat; another wedding dress is found elsewhere. It immediately becomes a good story.
     Weddings are luxuries, but useful luxuries — they can give a couple a good running start up the hill of married life. Sure, you can stamp your foot and insist on perfection. Good luck; maybe that'll work for you. But it's easier if you expect something will veer off course, look for it, wait for it, and when it occurs, say, "Right, this is the thing that's going to go wrong at my wedding."
     My wife and I, to this day, sometimes warm ourselves on the still-glowing embers of our wedding. Not because it was perfect, but because when glitches happened, we hopped over them and kept going. It didn't unfold perfectly, but it's perfect now.

    — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 29, 2010