"Here's your Kool-Aid. Now, get on the Arc."

"People were made to live two-by-two."
- Thorton Wilder's Mrs. Gibbs
"Our Town"

So, I know (off the top of my head) 10 couples getting married within the next 18 months. I wish them all the best of luck with that whole thing. But, I can't help but wonder what caused this overwhelming trend among my friends. We're all in our mid-twenties to mid-thirties. We're all healthy. Well "healthy." We're all white...which is something I've never really stopped to realize until just this second (seriously.) We're all moderately surviving on various financial levels. Is it just the natural imperative that good ole Thorton eluded to? It must be, right?

There has to be a science to it. The scent of someone's neck. The whole fluttery brain thing that happens - getting all flustered and hot when you try to talk to them the first thousand times. The way they can put their arm around your waist and squeeze just the right spot. Biological Geometry? Does that make sense? I don't know. But I do know that there is something really basically instinctual about falling in love that we've all had stirring around in the back of our brains for a long time by this point in our lives.

Is there anyone over the age of ...let's say 16, just so it plays in the sticks...who doesn't think about marriage? Not "obsess" over marriage, just think about marriage. Everyone does. We think about what type of person they will be. We think about what the ceremony will be like.

Quick side note: When I was around 14 years old I had the perfect ceremony planned down to the type of shoes I would be wearing....there were a lot of maroon and blood red roses involved. Heh heh, that's pretty funny looking back on it now.

Anyway, so OK maybe I went a little far with that. But I was young and you get what I'm talking about. Established: we have all thought about marriage, and what it will mean, to some degree or another.

So, all this thinking about it and then all of a sudden BOOM. The person you are dating is suddenly The One. That one, the one you want to grow old and into rocking chairs on the porch with. The one who is all and everything. So what do you do? You get married. Right, sure. Absolutely. You get married. There's a ring, and some phone calls and a few parties. Some time later there's The Big Show.

It's a show. I've worked on enough shows to know one when I see one. A wedding is just a really expensive, one-night-only, show. If done correctly it is the best show people have seen since, well the last wedding probably. It's a production. You have lines to memorize, there is an audience. Everyone claps at the end and then we all go to the bar to celebrate. Seriously, it's theater. So there has to be some science to the whole thing. If there is a science to "falling in love" - pheromone, brain impulses, erogenous zones...yep, that's science - then there is a science to making The Big Show happen properly.

It's not an EXACT science. I've been to some pretty unmemorable weddings that had every good intention. But there is definitely a science to it.

I have absolutely no idea what the formula is. But, I have 8 shows to see this year. I figure the key must be out there somewhere. My mom said to me "Eight weddings? Maybe your friends are trying to tell you something."

It's possible. But, my friends are not that subtle. Nor are they all that concerned with my marriage status. But maybe they will be able to tell me something else.

And maybe in the end, my mom might just get lucky.

(That was in no way a binding statement of any kind.)

8 Weddings and Not Enough Plane Tickets

I wonder if I can find an airline willing to sponsor this, my Jetset Year Of Weddings.
8 before the end of 2006. And that isn't even counting the nuptuals I refuse to accept or don't want to go to.
And it's not as if these people are convienently living in one city, or state for that matter. In fact, in September I have a week between a wedding in Cali and a wedding NY.
I've decided I'm going to chronicle this year of weddings, showers and bachlor/bachlorette weekend getaways. The good, the bad, the ugly...it's all going to be in here.
Friends forgive me.
Enemies, well you just shouldn't have invited me now should you?
By the end of this year I will be an expert wedding guest.