March of the Penguins

We’ve taken some time over the past three weeks to scout around for the men’s attire for the wedding. One of the perks to marrying someone whose spent the last 45 years as a student is that they conduct a vast amount of research during the normal course of their professional life and it naturally extends to their personal interests. We never walk out the door on a project without Bethany knowing 95% of what her vision will be for each topic and as a result we have efficient visits to our vendors without wasting time.

From my standpoint, I’m a simple guy when it comes to clothing and don’t really look to keep up on the latest styles. My rule for the tuxedo came down to I am not going to wear anything I’m not comfortable in or will be embarrassed to look at pictures of in three years. Bethany does not want the traditional James Bond tuxedo as we set a goal to find something different, but not over the top while also trying to locate a comfortable material for a warm summer day. I assume all reading this can correctly deduce the perfect suit would be one covered in ???? the eccentric guy on TV wears to hawk some book about scamming the government out of money.


We headed out a few Sundays ago with a plan and our first stop at an unnamed vendor did not go so well. For starters, the sales person and myself did not get along as he apparently had dealt with a few too many spoiled, bossy brides so he assumed they all fell into this category as he informed me I would have no say in what I could choose. The meeting’s highlight occurred when the two of us almost came to blows over wearing pink. Aside from us not getting along they really didn’t have the style we wanted so we made headed back to the Internet for more assistance.

Our second stop in Harvard Square went very well and was conducted in a much more professional manner. We found exactly the style we hade been looking for and after a week of living on saltines and crack, I finally felt comfortable with my body to make my modeling debut. Everything looked great and we celebrated crossing yet another item off the list with coffee milk shakes and hamburgers. Sorry folks, we’re saving our choice for the day of the wedding so you’re going to have to wait a few more months to view our selection.

On a final note, I recommend viewing the actual vest you may be wearing after being turned off by some of the smaller swatches of material. I found I appreciated some of them better once I viewed them as a full pattern as opposed to a tiny 2 by 3 inch scrap of cloth.

The Wedding Tour Continues

Congratulations to our friends Brian and Denise who celebrated their marriage last weekend with family and friends. Thank you for an all around good time and we look forward to seeing you in the future.

This marked our second wedding of the season and proved to be a very welcoming evening as the new couple strongly encouraged a family atmosphere complete with games for children of all ages. This included a TV themed version of Name That Tune to decide the order of tables being able to visit the buffet. For the record, I nailed Saved By The Bell for our table in record fashion and to celebrate they dumped a Gatorade jug full of cole slaw on me.

I met Brian in September 2004 when he moved up from Delaware to live in our apartment while he attended a yearlong program in the North End. He only ended up staying with us for eight months and if you count his vacations it probably turned out to be more like seven, but we really hit it off. We bonded about living on the third floor, American Idol, Song of the Week, and Triumph the Insult Dog Comic. He’s a great guy and I’m proud to say I can call him a friend.


A little known secret is that Brian and I decided at about the same time we wanted the women we currently dated to be our wives. Believe it or not we had several conversations about jewelry and strategies for the perfect proposal. I found it to be a valuable opportunity to have a sounding board of someone with the same goals and best of all we became engaged less than a week apart.

Thanks again for the memories and here’s to many more.

Reception News & Notes

We’ve been going full speed on the wedding ship over the past seven days and I nearly forgot to document our meeting at Club Longwood to go over reception details. Bethany had traded emails and phone calls over the past few months regarding some of the finer points, but this served as an occasion to formally sit down for a good hour to ensure everyone knew the plan for July 1. 2006. For all you future brides and grooms, Bethany and I received an itinerary for this meeting and going over it the night before proved to be very beneficial especially in the food area. Here’s a recap of the meeting where I think we nailed down 80-90% of the day.

• The conversation opened by building off the food tasting from the prior month. While all the dishes tasted delicious we decided to narrow our main course to the filet and sea bass with an available vegetarian option. We also needed to sort through the twenty or thirty h'or doeurves and I think we came up with a diverse mix for everyone. There will be chicken, meat, vegetable and of course the scallops wrapped in bacon
• The always interesting bar decision loomed as the next topic. Personally, my vote went to the open bar based on my past wedding experience, but it’s not completely my decision. It’s nice to do it for the guests and I think everyone has reached the age where they won’t treat the venue as a fraternity party. After some discussions leading up to this meeting, it had been determined we will be offering an open bar and deciding on the wine/champagne service wound up being the major discussion. One of the cooler results is we will be having servers working the room during the cocktail hour with trays of wine to help alleviate the wait at the bar.

• Bethany’s father has a friend who will be decorating our cake, but the in house catering service will be providing the layers for him to work his magic. As most of you know, I despise carrot cake more than any food out there so clearly we would be looking at another route. I have to confess I can’t fully recall what we went with once I knew one of the layers would be chocolate. I’m sure it will be delicious and the cake will look wonderful
• The reception hours will be 4:00-10:00. As you may or may not know, we will be offering shuttle service from our home base of Harvard Square to the reception in Brookline so please make the appropriate plans by reviewing the hotel options at the top left side of the page. For those of you who will be returning home after the wedding, parking will be available with more details to come at a later date
• For the seating layout we will be sitting ten to a table and the tables will be around the very crowded dance floor. The DJ will be in the room, but we will not be banishing him to the balcony. It would be kind of amusing though if he dropped a bucket where we could send up requests or his dinner.

That’s a wrap for now and you’ll probably here some more on some of these topics in a future post

The Other Ring

We celebrated a beautiful Saturday by heading downtown to shop for our wedding rings. Bethany engaged in a significant amount of research before our trip so I would approximate we had the rings picked out in under ten minutes. She knew exactly what she had her eye on and found the perfect compliment to her engagement bling, whereas I’ve never been a big jewelry guy and would draw a ring on every day with a Sharpie if I could.

In all seriousness, my jewelry experience extends to a high school class ring purchased my senior year and I never felt comfortable wearing it the two or three times I gave it a chance so it now lies in a drawer under some old soccer socks and Green Lantern underoos. Even though I never wore the ring, I recall bad memories of this clunky object on my hand and I have an overreacted concern of finger jewelry. The good news is I’m not the only person in this world with this freak condition so the ring manufacturers from the fiery pits of Mordor make a lightweight ring for pansies like myself that fit very comfortably. Seeing as how I’m also a also gigantic Gollum fan I’m looking forward to spending the reception in a loin cloth having conversations with myself, eating raw fish, and referring to Bethany as my precious.

While our trip to the jeweler turned out to me uneventful an interesting conversation developed next to us. The woman immediately to our left wore a snowball-sized engagement ring and searched for a wedding band larger than the ring she already had on. Her finger looked like it had one of those candy ring pops, but instead of watermelon this one was flavored as $100,000. While the sales clerk did repeatedly comment that money wouldn’t be a problem for her, I did not catch which athlete, actor, or musician she would be walking down the alter with

Lastly, while our rings were being priced in the back room some dude wearing shorts suddenly became enraged he had to wait three minutes for assistance and demanded to know if anyone had been helped yet. Upon being informed he would be next in line he waited about forty- five more seconds before deciding his softball game meant more to him than his engagement and stormed out the door. Did he honestly think the entire staff spent their Saturday standing around staring at the wall waiting for him to come in? I wish him the best of luck on his second marriage.

That's the latest item on the checklist. Stay tuned for word on the tuxedo hunt

Reception Introduction

One of the many items on our plate concerns the introduction of ourselves and our wedding party at the reception. I never really thought about this until our engagement, but once I did, I realized it’s a subtle yet important moment. I’ve seen everything from no music to a band to the Venga Boys song from the Sex Flags commercial. Someone I work with attended a wedding where they entered to the theme music of professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin. I think we want to make an entrance that has some character without being too over the top.

If anyone needs the greatest entrance ever I will be willing to assist in the choreography. The lights go down as the DJ begins playing the theme of the Michael Jordan led Chicago Bulls. The crowd starts hooting and hollering with excitement of what’s to come. Three moving spotlights appear on the ground and meet at the doorway to the explosion of fireworks as the announcer begins announcing the wedding party. “Starting at Power Groomsmen from The Ohio State University, Matthew Smith.” The guests pick up the pace by clapping in unison, throwing popcorn, and blowing air horns as the rest of the starters are announced and meet in the middle for the team handshake. We close out with a chorus of Rock and Roll, Part II(The Hey Song), a “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble,” and we’re ready to go. Oh and maybe we’ll use a zip line.

Unfortunately, we’ve used up our pyrotechnics budget for the year so we’ll be going a different route. At one point, I thought I’m Coming Out by Diana Ross would be kind of cool because it possesses a toe-tapping beat. It takes almost a minute, however, to get to anything of substance within the song not to mention the message doesn’t quite fit the occasion. For the moment I believe we’re leaning towards Love Train by the O’Jays because it’s a simple song with a fun rhythm I think everyone will be comfortable entering to. Hopefully, our party will have a good time with it and give a shake or two as they’re introduced to the wedding.

Back to the Wedding

Great Scott! I have been on a Back to the Future nostalgia ride over the past weeks after receiving the parody movie trailer for Brokeback to the Future and then catching the last forty minutes of the film on USA. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like this movie? In addition to having at least one quotable line in every scene it contains a fast moving, feel good story you can’t help not watching. From the eccentric Doc Brown to the geeky George McFly, the cast of characters will always have a special place in my heart. So without further ado I present the Back to the Future wedding:

• After the bride’s father walks her down the aisle to the theme song, the groom says, “Hey you, get your damn hands off her,” and decks him.
• The groom must wear the Marty McFly orange vest over his tuxedo while the groomsmen will have on cardboard 3-D glasses
• When the priest asks if anyone objects to this union, one of the guests must yell, “The Libyans!!!”
• By the power invested in me by 1.21 gigawatts I now pronounce you man and wife
• The cake will be in the shape of the flux capacitor
• All transportation will be in a DeLorean or skateboard
• The couple’s first dance will be to Earth Angel and the final song will Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News