Cotton-Pickin' Weddings!!!!!!

There was a period of my life where it seemed as if I was going to a wedding every other weekend, and then I had a long, GREAT stretch of time where I went to zero weddings (except Bubba's). Unfortunately, during the month of July I have to attend three, one of which I went to last night with the quasi-girlfriend. Here are the highlights.

- The DJ/Music SUCKED! During dinner he played jazz, which would have been perfect, had it been Miles or Ella, but it was flipping elevator-music/waiting room jazz. I felt like I was waiting to get a tooth drilled, rather than waiting for a shitty steak. At one point in the night, a point in which I was rather drunk, he played Eyes Wide Open by Creed. Yes, terrible, awful, bible-thumping Creed. I just had to sing it in an exaggerated, over-enunciating way, a-la Scott Stap, which was good for some laughs. The only time the DJ redeemed himself is when he played The Gancer's requests: Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice and Poison by Belle Biv Devoe.

- I got horribly depressed. Okay, I guess that's not a highlight, but it was noteworthy to be sure. I was married once, and while the marriage sucked and ended in ruin, the wedding was beautiful and a great time. Also, I couldn't help but think that it was my only wedding, and if I do it again a big "to do" will just seem stupid. Could I really ask a bunch of those people to come back to a big wedding any time soon, when my last marriage only lasted 8 months? "Hey, come on back to Chicago and get me another gift! I'm sure I'll make it a year this time around!" The whole experience, and all the other marriages around me that seem to end in one or both party being completely shitty to the other, has led to my extremely cynical outlook on marriage, which makes it hard as hell to be happy and/or optimistic at weddings. Don't get me wrong, I don't bring people around me down, and I want to be happy for the brides and grooms I see and suspend my disbelief, but I just can't get myself there.

- The crowd kind of sucked. It seemed as if there were lots of boring, early-twenties people, kids, old people, etc, but very few people of any kind who liked to get piss drunk, which is a guest's civic duty at a wedding. It's impolite not to. What have these people's mothers taught them? The dance floor was only full during the early, dorky, make the old folks happy, Twist and swing portion of the evening. During the late-night, someone better have a tie wrapped around his head part of the night, the only time I saw anyone get crazy was when they played Cotton Eye Joe, and some people were doing some kind of stupid-ass, Hee Haw, foot-slapping dance. It was painfully embarrassing.

- One thing that really blew was when the bar opened back up after that always brutal stretch of closed-bar time during dinner, when you've run out of the shit wine they drop on your table hours ago. Just as the bar tenders got back to their station, the slide show began. The really, long slide show, which was three parts (Bride, Groom, and Bride and Groom Together). The happy couple were sitting in chairs, holding hands, RIGHT by the bar, so anyone who stopped watching the show to get a cocktail, would look like an inconsiderate, stinking drunk, which I am, but I didn't want to tip everyone off to that fact, especially in front of the quasi-girlfriend's coworkers. Instead, I waited to see if anyone else was bold enough, but sadly, no one was.

Anyone been to any weddings lately? What was the suckiest thing about it?