CULTURE | It’s wedding season and this is your wedding survival guide.

Stock up on pocket squares and mani-pedi gift certificates. Strap on the strappy sandals and polish your wing tips. Buy that blender quick, because they may sell out.

Wedding season is upon us!

Sure, it sounds like fun now, but for every good wedding, there’s at least two stinkers, and come August, one too many chicken dances may have you wishing matrimony was no more.

Worse, when you’re at a crappy wedding, short of booking it out of there or drinking yourself into oblivion at the open bar, there’s not much you can do about it.

Or is there?

Wedding stinkifiers, meet your match.

We talked to some real-life wedding survivalists, a few who are expecting the worst right now, and have compiled their wisdom into this list that is sure to help you survive the season. (I mean, maybe? Godspeed, my friends.)

Your body’s too bootylicious

Hey, Princess Bubbleyum. You’ve been bestowed with the highest honour! You’re a bridesmaid! And you’re swaddled in a horrific, pastel number with a big ol’ butt bow. (As if your ass wasn’t fat enough to begin with.) 

Dress mess. “I’m in a wedding this summer. First of all, there are seven – SEVEN – bridesmaids. And you know what? Seven bridesmaids times $300 per ugly dress equals $2100 worth of ugly dresses. Mine makes my boobs look lopsided. Oh, and it’s strapless and it doesn’t stay up. This is serious.” – Emily McWalter, 26

Embrace it, Bubbleyum! As part of the wedding party, it’s your job to look like crap. Make the most of your fabric-enhanced bottom by bustin’ it on the dance floor. Request Sir Mixalot’s “Baby Got Back” and shake it. And invest in safety pins before you go.

Love’s labours lost

Oh geeze. If Officiants still said that “speak now or forever hold your peace” bit, you’d be shoutin’ out like nobody’s business. Alas, your love is marrying another. When you’ve got an unrequited crush on the betrothed, their wedding might make you want to slit your poor, sad wrists. Or set fire to the church. That’ll teach ‘em!

Authentic ardour? “I went to an ex’s wedding once … What was I supposed to do? She invited me and I didn’t want to be a prick. I won’t go into detail, but by the end I wanted to scratch my eyes out with rusty nails. Never again.” –Dave Woods, 31

Holy tetanus shot, Batman. Put away the weapons, crazy pants. Bloodstains are forever and booze and heartbreak don’t mix. Sit through the ceremony, shed a silent tear if you need to, then stick to the sidelines. If you can, laugh at those who do the Time Warp (go Auntie Mary, go) and duck out early. Use the evening to mark a turning point in your life.

Hungry eyes

Your date’s got that look – wide-eyed adoration with a touch of demented desire. The proposal hunt is on! Hungry eyes are all well and good if you’re both on the same page, but if your special somebody’s been blinded by wedding bling, beware.

Hunted man? “Weddings are the easiest place to get laid in North America. They make women crazy. I went to one where I’d dated the bride and almost went home with one of the bridesmaids. She was just so freaked out that her friend was getting married and she didn’t have anyone.” –Craig Swann, 25

Fend them off! Hide from Hungry’s advances by making vague but satiating remarks like “wasn’t the ceremony beautiful?” In other words, love enough to soothe the beast, but don’t actually agree to anything. There’s fun to be had in playing a good defensive game. Remember grade six gym class? Dodge baby, dodge.

Who are you people?

Fwends! The bride’s a girlfriend, the groom’s a pal, but who are all these other losers? It sucks when you’re at a table for ten and you don’t have anyone to talk to. Worse, if you’re lonely, you’re probably a fringe friend, unlikely to cross paths with the in-crowd again.

A real-life loner. “My girlfriend’s in a bridal party this summer, and I’m just a guest. So we can’t sit together. I can’t stand being in a giant group of strangers and not being able to at least sit with the person I came with. It’s pretty annoying.”–Steve Machtaler, 24

Stranger danger? Strangers can’t tell when you’re being strange, so let loose. Join the conga line, and kick up your heels with abandon. Boozing is encouraged and macking on members of the wedding party allowed. As long as you don’t go overboard (i.e. puking, stripping, karaoke) the bride and groom will likely be too busy to notice. And they’re not your friends anyway, so regardless, who cares?

For the love of god, shut up

Photo by Alasdair Elmes on Unsplash

Damn those freaks at Toastmasters. It’s one thing for Dad to say a few short and sweet words, but when every idiot wants a chance at the mic, “I’m just going to say a few words” starts to sound a lot like “I’m going to ramble on for twenty minutes.” And bladders just aren’t built for that.

Trapped! “At one wedding I went to, I had to pee SO badly, but the bride’s dad was speaking and I didn’t want to be rude. Finally, when I couldn’t hold it a minute longer, I dashed off, trying to crouch down as I made my way around the tables. Later, the bride herself stood up and said, ‘The girls out there will understand – when you gotta go, you gotta go!’ just before running off to the washroom herself.” –Patricia Ambrogi, 24

Watch for signs. Keep your eyes peeled for signals that the speeches are about to begin. Before the crowd settles into silence, beeline to the bathroom. Partake of any free goodies you find there. Once Dad gets yakking, you won’t be able to escape undetected, but if you slip out just before, you can slip back in during K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s “Celebration” and no one will be the wiser.

Too shitty to salvage

“My older sister’s wedding was awful. It was in May of 2000, and it was held outdoors on some friend’s dog poo covered lawn. It was raining. Apparently the couple that owned the house didn’t have time to scoop poo the morning of the wedding, so the aisle was draped over it. The chairs were squished into poo. All our shoes had poo on them. It was everywhere. The dinner, at a rented hall, was potluck. My sister thought that a potluck would be “fun and cheap”, but there wasn’t enough and it was gone before the last few tables even got a chance at it. So some of us ended up sitting at empty tables drinking Safeway-brand apple cider. Most people left before the dancing started. I assume it was because they were dying of hunger, but maybe it was the lingering poo smell. My sister still thinks it was the best wedding ever.” –Kathryn M., 25

2018: I was forced to rewrite this absurdly annoying piece at least three times before it finally published.

My “editor” just kept saying it needed more quotes.

Dose loved to send us out to do “streeters” which is what they call it when they force you to stand outside like a fucking idiot begging strangers to give you quotes.

It’s not terrible when the solicitation of public opinion actually makes sense, but for a piece like this, streeters were a nightmare. I also just didn’t have time for that sort of thing.

Five stories a day, remember?

Reading three books a week. Myriad other responsibilities. It would have taken me hours on the sidewalk to get enough diverse quotes for this piece, and most of them would have been thrown out by my editor anyway.

Not to mention the horrific effects such a thing would have on my social anxiety disorder. I was already stuck doing streeters nearly every day, but I couldn’t stomach it for this piece, so I begged friends to give me quotes instead.

Literally everyone quoted in this piece was someone I knew IRL. This, of course, is not good journalistic practice. It’s also not good friendship practice, because most people hate seeing their verbalizations in print. They obsess about how they sound and get mad about their quotes, after the fact. As if you tricked them into sounding stupid somehow.

Getting quotes from so-called “real people” for nonsense filler pieces like this is tiresome, no matter what, basically.

More culture and trends, here.

Published in Dose, June 23, 2005.