[BITList] Fwd: Rev. Know-It-All: Don't you just love weddings? MUST READ !!!

[John Feltham]

I think there may be some mileage in this one...




Today's Question
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Don't you just love weddings?
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Sunday
October 4, 2009

Editorial Note:
Warning: THIS EPISODE OF THE REV. KNOW IT ALL IS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE.  
IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW. PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE.  
THE REV. KNOW IT ALL IS NOT OPPOSED TO ALL WEDDING CELEBRATIONS. HE IS  
NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR WEDDING WHICH WAS A TRIUMPH OF PERSONAL  
SANCTITY AND GOOD TASTE. HE IS PROBABLY JUST HAVING A BAD DAY.

Dear Rev. Know-It-All,

I visited your church once and am thinking about having my wedding  
there. How long is your main aisle?

Mary O'Burne
Answer
Dear Mary,

I am often asked that question, and never quite understand it. Are  
brides curious about the length of the aisle because they think a  
longer aisle may give them a few more minutes to back out of the whole  
thing? Or, as I suspect, does a long aisle prolong the glorious  
promenade of which a young girl dreams as she thumbs through bridal  
magazine as she contemplates her special day, when all eyes focus on  
her as she approaches her enchanted prince and all the world thinks  
she's gorgeous and knows that she has bagged her man just as surely as  
a Wisconsin bricklayer bags a deer and ties it onto the roof of his  
pick up truck? I have certainly seen a few grooms who look like a  
frightened deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Why is it that weddings cause people to spend so much time, energy and  
money? And more money. The average American wedding costs almost  
$29,000, according to "The Wedding Report", a market research  
publication. $29,000!"  Oh, by the by, the usual donation to the  
church is about $200.00. That $200 goes to the church, not to the  
priest. The usual gift to the priest is a hearty handclasp. The usual  
cost of the photographer is $2,000.00. All this tells me that the  
photographs are one hundred times more important than the grace of the  
sacrament, in most peoples' estimation. The usual fee for the DJ is  
$1,500.00. I am consoled by this. It means that painful, occasionally  
obscene music loud enough to cause brain damage is only 75 times more  
important than the grace of the sacrament.

You must be thinking why is this guy so down on weddings?  I am down  
on some weddings because I am very "up" on the sacrament of matrimony  
and really in favor of marriage. That's why the modern method of  
marrying and the wedding industry make me crazy. They militate against  
marriage. Here is the heart of my complaint. IT IS STUPID TO SPEND  
MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING THAN YOU DO PREPARING  
FOR THE MARRIAGE!!! I have known people who are still paying the  
credit card bills generated by the wedding years after the marriage is  
over.

The Modern Method of Marriage, a Reprise. The following is taken from  
my own experiences and things people have told me (outside of  
confession, you'll be glad to know.) Here goes.

A young man and a young woman meet and have a few dates. They go for a  
weekend at a bed and breakfast where they bed one another, and then  
have breakfast. If he isn't too much of a jerk and she isn't too  
picky, they are then an item. She goes to the doctor gets a  
prescription and goes on to a more permanent form of birth control. At  
some time during this stage, the uncomfortable meeting with the  
parents happens. Everyone is polite and "supportive." Secretly the  
father of the young woman who knows exactly what's going on,  
contemplates buying a gun and the mother of the young man begins  
gossiping with whomever will listen about how her little boy could do  
better. After a while, if things hold up, they begin to have the  
conversation about taking their relationship to the "next level" by  
which they mean shacking up, as we used to call it. Now, I think it's  
called moving in together.

Mom and Dad buy housewarming gifts in an attempt to, once again, be  
supportive. They don't want their little dears to hate them and  
besides, it's what everyone is doing these days, so it can't be wrong.  
They have vague thoughts about getting married at that point and mom  
explains to grandma and to friends at church that they are just doing  
it to save money for the wedding. At this stage an engagement ring may  
appear. At some point, when they think about getting the house and the  
kids, because that's what you do, they decide to have the wedding.  
They rent the hall and then go see the priest. He tells them there are  
four other weddings that day and they respond, "but we've rented the  
hall already." Someone suggests a garden wedding if the church is  
occupied.

The priest says we can't do garden weddings. (More on this later.)

The young couple begins to complain about how narrow-minded the Church  
is with all these rules and regulations. They eventually pick a date.  
Then the bottom drops out. It seems the groom is not Catholic. He was  
baptized in the First Reformed Church of the Druids, though he never  
practiced. This means there must be a dispensation for the marriage,  
another irritating Catholic invention, and the wedding date cannot be  
confirmed until the dispensation is received. The bride goes back to  
her doctor, this time for a prescription for valium. Her mother joins  
her on this visit. Finally the dispensation is granted, The groom's  
druid will do one of the readings at the wedding, the loans are taken  
out, the banns are published.

Then there is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The best man comes  
to the rehearsal drunk out of his mind, the groom only slightly tipsy.  
The bride is furious at everyone for some reason known to her alone.   
Probably because the groom is far more interested in drinking and  
watching the football game on his hand held computer thing than he is  
in gazing lovingly into her eyes in anticipation of the great day. In  
fact they haven't been, well... friendly in weeks. It is, after all,  
football season.

The special day comes, the best man is still drunk, the groom is hung  
over, no one knew about that interesting tattoo that the maid of honor  
had way low on her back, now revealed by the plunging back of her  
dress that is held up only by wishful thinking. Grandma, upon reading  
the logo of the maid of honor's tattoo, has fainted. Somewhere in all  
this the vows are exchanged, and quite a few of the wedding party  
receive their first Holy Communion that day, however one of the ushers  
puts the host in his suit pocket not having a clue what it is. (This  
actually has happened to me twice.) The pictures have been taken. The  
noise level in the church reaches that of an English soccer match  
after the riot has broken out. The children are jumping off the altar  
and the priest is scowling at everyone. Now on to the pictures in the  
forest preserve, a "must" at every wedding. There the wedding party is  
attacked by mosquitoes, one of the children falls into the lagoon and  
the bride is having a hard time smiling for the photos. The best man  
passes out. On to the reception.

The bride loses it because the shade of fuchsia in the floral center  
pieces clashes with the shade of fuchsia in the wedding party's  
outfit. The groom adjourns to the bar where the game is on the  
television. The wedding dinner is served as music is played at a mind  
numbing volume. Grandma is better now. She has turned off her hearing  
aid. The priest is seated with the pious relatives in plaid suit coats  
and leaves shortly after the grace before meals. The best man makes  
the toast which drones on about how he loves the groom and one begins  
to wonder. The college roommate/maid of honor does the same for the  
bride, going on for fifteen minutes about how she knew the bride would  
find eternal marital bliss the moment she met her in the third grade  
and they have been like sisters ever since.

Then at some point, there is a video presentation of embarrassing  
photos not unlike the ones that are now shown at wakes. The bar opens  
up again. The music reaches levels that cause blood to drip from some  
peoples' nose and ears. The joyous event ends with the bride and groom  
being the last to leave the hall. They are slow to go up to the room  
they have rented in the hotel because nothing new or beautiful awaits  
them there. The groom promptly falls asleep, being heavily sedated  
already, and, as he snores away, with his shoes still on, our blushing  
bride, having shed her dress of virginal white, thinks back on this  
day, her special day, the most important day in her life, the day she  
has dreamt of since she was a little girl. They will stay an extra day  
at the hotel, but cannot afford the time or money to go on a honeymoon  
because on Monday they will both be back at work in order to pay off  
the colossal bill that their special day has incurred.

For some reason, the bride is depressed. Perhaps she is realizing that  
the high point of her life is now past and the rest of it will be  
spent with the lump that is now snoring beside her with whom she has  
never really had a serious conversation, except about the proper shade  
of fuchsia for the floral centerpieces. So it is that we celebrate the  
marriage of Christ and His Church in these enlightened and tolerant  
times.

Remember, none of these things happened at your wedding, thank God and  
don't think from reading this that I am down on marriage or even  
weddings. I love a wedding celebration when there is something to  
celebrate. Also, it is never too late to begin again by taking Christ  
and His gospel seriously.

PLEASE SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE THAN YOU  
DO PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING.

Yours,

Rev. Know-It-All

P.S. Garden weddings: They look good in all the bridal magazines but  
they are just opportunities to feed biting insects and suffer from  
sunburn. It is however amusing to watch the bridesmaids sinking in the  
mud as they try, after a few margaritas to maneuver the newly laid sod  
in spiked heals. The bride is generally exhausted from not having  
slept for three weeks as she worries about the weather reports which  
are promising a 50 percent chance of typhoons and earthquakes that  
day. And destination weddings. Don't get me started on Destination  
Weddings! You want to be married with just your closest friends on a  
beach in Maui. That means that Grandma can't go because she hasn't  
flown since the Hindenburg Disaster, and is thinking of cutting you  
out of the will, and all the friends and relatives who aren't with you  
on the beach in Maui realize they aren't very close to you after all.  
And I haven't a clue how long the aisle is here at St. Dymphna's.




.

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ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.




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