Wedding Bells

My uncle is 55 and has been living the bachelor lifestyle for quite some time. My dad called me a few months ago asking for my address so that Uncle Ed could send me a wedding invitation. What? Why? I'm convinced this wedding took place for financial reasons because after 10 years of living together why fix what's not broken.

On the way to the wedding my sister and I were discussing the bouquet. I am determined to catch a bouquet damnit! It actually has nothing to do with the whole getting married part...I just want the attention of being the young, hot single who caught the bouquet. Is that wrong? I don't think so. Luckily my sister has no interest in drawing large amounts of attention to herself, so we came up with the plan of her pulling a volleyball-type serve over to me if the flowers were heading in her direction. Sweet.

We pulled up in my 2002 Hyundai Accent among all the other BMW's, Mercedes, and Lincolns. My date thought he would be funny. "Maybe we should have taken my car..." he says with a chuckle to himself. Yeah, because your Toyota Corolla certainly would have caused some jaws to drop.

We got inside and we were waiting to go in for the ceremony and there was a bar available. I liked the idea of that. I went over to the bar thinking about what I should start the evening with. "A nice glass of a good ass kicking red", I thought to myself. Then a little sign caught my attention.

A cash bar will be open for your enjoyment before your event.

Cash bar??? I immediately went into a panic. I assumed this would be open bar since my uncle is a bartender. I literally had $4 in my clutch and that was for the vallet and my toll home. As I really begin to worry about where my cheerfulness will come from this evening my cousin steps up behind me.

"This better be an open bar. He's a bartender....cash bar would be so tacky."

At least I wasn't the only one thinking it.

Luckily once cocktail hour began the cash bar became open. Praise the Lord. I was looking around at the guests and quickly noticed something...we (my sister and the rest of the cousins) were the youngest people there by at least 20 years. There was no bouquet being thrown. If they had, it would have been me, my sister, and my two cousins on the dance floor waiting to fight to the death to catch this thing. Actually, that's a lie. My sister had already agreed to send it my way and my two cousins are 17 and 12. I wouldn't have had any competition. It wouldn't have been exciting...just sad. What's worse is that if they tossed the garter then it would have been between my father and my date. I don't even have to say it...I'm sure you can already imagine the horror.

Instead they played the anniversary dance. All the married couples got on the dance floor to compete for a very pricey bottle of champagne. One by one the DJ called them down by how long they had been married

Less than 5 years...

Less than 10 years...

No on on that dance floor had been married for less than 25 years. The couple who won had been married for a whopping 48 years. They got married the year my mother was born. That's certainly something to brag about.

My aunt was actually the one to say what everyone else was thinking..."This is by far the oldest wedding I've ever been to".

Well said, Aunt Beanie.