Wedding planning 101: Head out to Las Vegas

It seems that everyone loves a wedding. Unless, of course, you are paying for it, which at this point in time, may reach the cost of the total budget of some Third World countries.

Still, it is an exciting day, and one which may be around the corner as we head into wedding season.

Come on, who doesn’t love the opportunity to witness two reasonable families come together to participate in a traditional ceremony, which will wind up 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 memories…”

But if you are involved in 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. 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. So many guests 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 her, you have to invite the other people in your family who will feel slighted, which incidentally was the real cause of a falling out and a restraining order.

Now the B List, which is sort of the fillers, 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 the 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.” Unless you get a Spanish clerk and then it’s deez and dooz.

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, struck by the intimate details, such as 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 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; still, Las Vegas might just be the refund you are looking for.