WEDOPEDIA

An A to Z glossary of buzzwords that couples will encounter during the hazing ritual we call “planning a wedding.”

AISLE: The aisle is the walkway between the two rectangles of seats, where the bridal party walks slower than they usually do into the ceremonial area.

The aisle is a function of practicality because otherwise, the bridal party would have to enter around the sides of the guests or be lowered from the ceiling. Those are literally the only options. It’s also a way to separate the groom’s family from the bride’s family. This has long been the practice, just in case the two families are at war with each other. (Hmmm: instead of a border wall, maybe a border aisle?)

On the other hand, the aisle need not be the DMZ of wedding spaces. Lots of couples’ families get along just fine, and guests are often invited to ‘pick a seat, not a side, we love you all, thin or wide.’ Close family members are usually separated each to a side, but this is purely a practical way to ensure that all parents have seats of honor in the front row.

No law states that there must be only one aisle in a wedding. Should anyone involved in your wedding want to get creative with chair set up, you could create diagonal entranceways, sideways entranceways, or any other setup that could subvert expectations. Instead of one focal aisle, you can create the excitement of wondering who will walk down which aisle. As long as there are enough chairs for all the expected guests, and each guest has a good view of the ceremony, set them up any old way you want. Incorporate platforms. Decorate the chairs with flowers or lights or balloons. Use chairs that don’t match, chairs that aren’t the same style.

ALTAR: The area at the front of the ceremonial space where the ceremony takes place. I prefer to call it the “ceremonial matrimonial sweet spot,” which I think is catchier than “Love’s Trap Door.”

AM I OUT OF MY MIND?: (See OUTDOOR WEDDINGS)

ASKING, THE: Some couples don’t want to say personal vows out loud at their wedding. For some, this is just too personal for them, despite the fact that they made 150 friends and family members travel across the country and book hotel rooms and buy gifts and dress up in tuxedos and show up for a long night of catered food and canned dance music in order to help them celebrate something very personal.

For these people, a good solution is The Asking, in which the celebrant asks a series of questions that amount to vows. The couple responds, individually, with the words “I do.” (See also Chapter 8 on page 86 and Sample Ceremony: Ben and Natalya on page 132.)

BACHELOR PARTY: The bachelor party originated in Sparta in the fifth century BC, on a Thursday. Or maybe it originated elsewhere. I don’t know, I’m not a history professor. I do know that the bachelor party is the last chance a groom is allowed to misbehave without consequences. It is a celebration of HEdonism: Drugs, alcohol, strippers, bro-hugs, more strippers, bellicose professing of man-ness—these are all marks of a good bachelor party. If the groom and other participants have little recollection of what happened the next day, all the better. I believe there is a film (or several) inspired by the idea of a bachelor party gone wrong.

The best man has a lot on his shoulders when planning his friend’s bachelor party because if it’s boring, his entire maleness will be in question for the rest of his life. If the best man is floating the idea of a tea service followed by a knitting class at the local library, it’s time to find another best man. If the best man and all the groomsmen show up at the groom’s house on Harleys, with the Philly Phanatic leading the pack, the groom is in for an adventurous evening (especially if none of them know how to ride a motorcycle).

The bachelor party’s subtext is the question: “Are you suuuuuuuuure you want to get married?” The answer to that question should be: “Yes, I am absolutely sure,” which is why it is the best man’s responsibility to make sure the groom feels completely horrible the next morning. The bachelor party is behavioral therapy, in that hedonism is paired with a crushing hangover. Hedonism is therefore associated with pain and henceforth avoided. (In theory.)

BACHELORETTE PARTY: Also called a “Hen” Party. (Hens call them “Bock Bock Bakawwwwww!”) A hen party is a celebration of SHEdonism. At a bachelorette party, the bride’s friends and sisters will go out, drink too much, shout “woo hoo!,” do shots of Jägermeister, and dance on top of a bar, like in Coyote Ugly. The women will decorate themselves in a ridiculous corruption of traditional bridal gear. There will be drama. At least one of them will lose their smartphone. They will take selfies and dance in the exact same way to different kinds of dance music. (Hands in the air, moving their hips in a way they saw someone moving their hips in a video.) Each of them, throughout the evening, will confess to how beautiful the bride is, even when the bride is sitting on the floor of the ladies’ room with a black eye and vomit trickling down her chin.

Men in public who encounter a bachelorette party in progress would be well advised to step away, the way one side-steps a spilled smoothie because maybe it’s not a smoothie.

The subtext for every Bachelorette Party is “woooooo-hooooo!!!!!!”

BREAKING OF THE GLASS: Everyone loves yelling “Mazel Tov!” People incorporate the phrase “mazel tov” into daily conversation. Some people shorten it to “mazel.” My friend Taj likes to say, “Mazel Taj.” It’s a fun, exotic way of saying good luck, or good for you, or thanks for the free dinner. Everyone loves yelling out loud if they know everyone else will be yelling out loud too. Everyone loves that they can be outgoing and anonymous at the same time. (Also why people move to New York.)

The breaking of the glass, from the Jewish faith, symbolizes the fragile nature of love. Love is very fragile and, once broken, is hard to put back together again. In other words, it’s not a good idea to make your wife shatter into thirty-five pieces, so don’t put her into a wood chipper. In other-other words, treat your relationship as if it has the tensegrity of an expensive wine glass or a small filament light bulb. Assume your marriage will shatter at the slightest provocation. The breaking of the glass casts a skeptical eye on most relationships as if they’re just moments from disaster.

What would make more sense is if instead of breaking a glass, we make the couple reassemble a glass that is already broken, so they get a good taste of what a pain it would be to have to mend a shattered relationship. I mean anyone can shatter a glass and ruin a relationship. Just saying. I think they’ve got it backward.

CERTIFIED LIFE-CYCLE CELEBRANT®: A trained, certified Life-Cycle Celebrant can make your wedding ceremony an extravaganza of personal storytelling, romance, and joy. Celebrants train at the prestigious and little-known Celebrant Foundation & Institute. Becoming a celebrant is a great career idea for people who have lived a bit, for middle-aged people or seniors transitioning from full-time work to part-time work, or retired people whose spouses have been pleading with them to get out of the house.

Celebrants learn the art of ceremony, storytelling, public speaking, rituals, interpersonal juggling, spiritual traditions, cultural idiosyncrasies and self-promotion. They also spend a lot of time learning to pronounce the word “celebrant” so people don’t think they’re talking about being “celibate,” which is a totally different thing. (Do celibate people celebrate anything?)

Celebrants know what they’re doing. They’ve encountered every type of couple (old and young, tall and short, right-wing and left-wing, smart and dumb, Aquarius and Capricorn), every type of ceremony situation (second marriage, third marriage, outdoor, indoor, big crowd, small crowd, mic, no mic), every combination of spiritual beliefs (Jewish and Catholic, Christian and Muslim, Atheist and Agnostic, Wicca and Mormon, etc.). When you are thinking about hiring someone to officiate your ceremony, ask yourself these questions:

Do I have one or more spiritual or cultural elements in my ceremony that require acknowledgment in a dignified manner?

Answer: Hire a trained Life-Cycle Celebrant™.

Do I want my ceremony to kick the evening off on a high-energy celebratory note?

Answer: Hire a trained Life-Cycle Celebrant™.

Do I want to spend top dollar to hire a professional to over-deliver on quality?

Answer: Hire a trained Life-Cycle Celebrant™.

If I hire a dentist to do my root canal, and I hire an accountant to do my taxes, and I hire a mechanic to fix my transmission, and I hire a lawyer to represent me in court, what kind of professional should I hire to create and perform my wedding ceremony?

Answer: Hire a trained Life-Cycle Celebrant™.

CHUPPAH: A chuppah is a rectangular, four-pillared open roof that stands in, and visually dominates, the ceremonial space. The open roof represents the home of the about-to-be-married couple, the hospitality that they had better pay their relatives if they know what’s good for them, and the openness of spirit the couple must have with their family. In other words, the Chuppah reminds the couple to be prepared for drop-ins.

COCKTAIL HOUR: Have an open bar. (See also OPEN BAR)

DAY-OF COORDINATOR: Unless you would like to be stressed out of your mind on your wedding day, you should hire a day-of coordinator to handle all the functional details so you can concentrate on enjoying yourself and/or rethinking your decision to marry.

A day-of coordinator is a detail-obsessed organizer with managerial experience who loves to orchestrate the work of multiple vendors. She’s usually a woman, no idea why. She’ll be a lifesaver on your wedding day. She’ll be the one to answer phone calls and texts while you have your photo taken with your fiancé(e) in a gritty alleyway in DUMBO or a meadow in Montana. She’ll handle staff questions while you get drunk in the back of your limousine on the way to another part of your photo shoot. She’ll make sure the band knows when to arrive and where to set up when they do. She’ll make sure the florist finishes decorating the ceremonial area in time for your photographer to take pre-ceremony shots while you boogie with your besties to Beyoncé in your bridal suite. She’ll make sure you and your fiancé(e) get to eat something before that social whirlwind you’ll face at the reception. She’ll do it all with a smile on her face, no matter how crazed the day seems because she lives for this adrenaline. She thrives on it. I don’t know how she gets through the rest of her week, or why she is always a woman.

DESTINATION WEDDING: A wedding in a distant, inconvenient location to which nobody can afford to go.

DIAMONDS: Diamonds are forever, meaning, it’ll take you forever to pay for a diamond. (See also KARAT) Diamonds are a good test to see how superficial your girlfriend really is. Any round object imbued with your love that fits around her finger should be enough for her to understand that you intend to love her forever, even if it’s just an onion ring. If your girlfriend puts extraordinary pressure on you to produce a ring with a big diamond, let that be a preview of what her other expectations will be of you going forward.

If your girlfriend wants you to spend a fortune on a gaudy ring chock-full-o’-diamonds as a way of proving your love for her, my advice would be to reevaluate your wedding thoughts as soon as possible. (Buddy, if she can’t love you for you . . .)

Spending a lot of money on a diamond is like a baseball team’s general manager overspending on a closer. Sure, such an expenditure may pay dividends at important junctures in the immediate future, but in the long-term, don’t be mistaken: no matter how great that ring is, you’re going to have to come through in dozens of other ways.

As we establish in our sure-to-be-Pulitzer-Prize-winning section “Rings,” there is great meaning and symbolism in rings. This part is just about the diamond. If you want to get your partner a diamond ring, for whatever reason, do it the right way. Go to a jeweler. Do your own research. Learn about the four C’s: cut, clarity, cost, and Costco.

Cut: how many African children cut their hands finding this diamond?

Clarity:the degree to which your relationship is based on your diamond selection should offer you clarity as to whether this woman is for you.

Cost:what could you buy for the cost of this glittery piece of jewelry? Could you put someone through college? Could you feed a family in Africa? Could you buy season tickets to see your favorite sports team? What will other things cost during your marriage? You know, important things like houses and your daughter’s wedding.

Costco:does Costco have a diamond department? Would your fiancée really know the difference if you bought a fake?*

*Yes, she would.

ELOPEMENT: I don’t get why more people don’t elope. People who elope are the smartest people in the world when it comes to wedding intelligence. We in the wedding industry don’t want our industry disappearing, but we have to tip our hats to the geniuses who figure out that you can get married without the hoopla and expense. All you need are a few signatures on a license, a little bit of cash, some valid ID, and you can get married just as much as the couple that books the Park Plaza, hires the most heralded caterer, the hippest DJ, the best photographer, the most expensive videographer, and me.

Couples have all kinds of reasons to elope. Some of them love the romance of a distant, private wedding. Others can’t afford a big to-do like the freaking Rockefellers. Some of them do not get along with their family. These are all valid reasons for eloping (and the last one is a good reason for therapy). Saying that you eloped is like saying you bought a Mercedes for $100. Eloping also saves your friends tons of money on travel and gifts. Everybody wins with elopements . . . except your family members who have waited their entire lives for the chance to meddle in your wedding plans and will now go to their grave knowing you no longer love them. Other than them, everybody wins with elopements . . . except most people in the wedding industry other than officiants, who can make half their money in one-tenth the time. I don’t know algebra, but I suspect that’s good math.

Couples can elope, then still organize and go through with a gigantic wedding. Why wait to reap the tax benefits of being a married couple? A lot of couples spend a year or more planning their big wedding—it may be that the tax benefits they’d get by being married during that year and a half could offset some of the expense of the wedding. In fact, I may start using that as an incentive for people to hire me twice.

FIFTY PLACES TO WED YOUR LOVER:

A place of which you’re fond

A gazebo by a pond

A lounge at a hotel

To the tune of Pachelbel

At a county jamboree

On a tour of NBC

A sunny leafy vineyard

A rustic goofy junkyard

At the place where you first met

In the rain so you get wet

A theater on a stage

A home where people age

A park before dark

An ark with Marky Mark

On the edge of a cliff

In between graveyard shifts

A barn on a horse

In Norway, where they’re Norse

Your favorite casino

A gondola with Gino

The seventeenth green

A big trampoline

A catering hall

A new shopping mall

A rustic Brooklyn winery

An equation if you’re binary

Against your parents’ wishes

An aquarium of fishes

A cruise ship near Gibraltar

A cheesy makeshift altar

A pond, in the nude

A place where beer is brewed

A big skating rink

A concert with Pink

A café on the river

An igloo while you shiver

The Parthenon in Greece

Alaska, wearing fleece

Your building’s cafeteria

Surrounded by wisteria

A church with a priest

Wearing khakis that are creased

A car by Lamar

A bar by a Czar

Times Square on New Year’s Eve

A fundraiser with Steve

The place they cut your hair

A campsite with a bear

A lobster shack in Maine

A speeding Amtrak train

FIRST LOOK: “First Look” is easier to say than “first time the couple sees each other wearing the clothing they will wear at the wedding.” Some people think that it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony. (Definitely bad luck to see the groom in the wedding dress.) Some people think that if you step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back, despite a complete lack of cause and effect evidence. Some people believe that bad things will happen if you walk under a ladder. Are you the type who does not believe that, or who does? (Are you the former, or . . . the ladder?) It’s also very difficult to prove that the groom seeing the bride in her bridal dress before the ceremony will lead to bad luck. It can be surmised that any bride or groom who believes in such a thing may in fact court bad luck for other cockamamie beliefs, so in that way, there’s some validity to it.

Chris, what is the first look, exactly?

I should probably explain what this is, huh? Good point! Thanks goodness you’re paying attention.

The First Look is for couples who see no credence in the groom-not-seeing-the-bride-in-her-wedding-dress-before-the-wedding superstition, and who care about guest experience. The First Look is, in fact, the first time a couple sees each other in their wedding attire, but the major difference is that this happens during a pre-ceremony photo shoot. The First Look is staged early, captured on camera, and then everyone can behave normally. After the ceremony, the couple can mingle with their guests whenever they’re ready, and nobody has to go nuts hiding humans from each other. When couples eschew the solution of a First Look and instead need to be hidden from each other before the ceremony, it creates two challenges:

Challenge #1: The staff at the wedding venue, on top of everything else they have to arrange and stay on top of in order to produce the perfect wedding day they’ve promised, have to hide one human being from another, meaning they have to manage sightlines, corners and rooms, and maintain walkie-talkie contact with staff members assigned to each party.

Challenge #2:A lot of photographs will have to be taken after the ceremony, which means that the bridal party misses cocktail hour entirely, and all the guests who have traveled halfway around the world to attend your wedding now have to wait an additional hour to ninety minutes to see the only two people they really care about seeing that day.

What was that groaning sound?

Oh that was just Grandma—Grandmas get really squeamish about the groom not seeing the bride in her bridal outfit before the wedding.

Maybe Grandma needs to lighten up.

YOU tell her that.

FRIEND: Some folks out in the world want to be married by a friend, someone who already knows them, someone they trust, and whom they don’t have to pay much if anything. Friends can make a wedding ceremony feel like a casual, low-stress event.

If you have been asked to officiate your friend’s wedding, congratulations! I hope this book helps you do justice to this undertaking. They may have asked you to officiate because you’re the most outgoing person they know, or because you’re a comedian, or because you introduced them to each other. No matter how extroverted you may be, there is, as I hope this book shows, a lot to consider when preparing and performing a wedding. Please do not hesitate to contact me through my website, www.IlluminatingCeremonies.com, if you would like to schedule a phone call tutorial. Operators are standing by (probably, somewhere. I don’t employ any. Maybe I will be standing by). Please have your Venmo or Paypal account handy. Perhaps this will become my next big side business! Get in on the ground floor.

GARTER: A piece of fabric meant to hold up stockings or socks. In the wedding sense, the garter is an item of clothing that the bride wears around her thigh. During the reception, the groom traditionally removes his bride’s garter, then tosses it towards his unmarried male guests. Whoever catches it, according to tradition, will be the next to become married. Removing the garter symbolizes deflowering, not that anybody talks about that at the wedding. But now you have an icebreaker to use. You’re welcome.

GUEST EXPERIENCE: Guest experience is a thing that begins long before your wedding day. Guest experience begins the moment the guests find out that they are guests. Here is a dramatization of that moment:

Average person stands in a ho-hum hallway, going through his mail.

“Here I am, merely a human being, opening some mail.”

Opens your wedding invitation, reads it.

“Wait! I’m not just a human being! I’M A GUEST!”

Jumps in the air to click his heels, it’s so awkward that he falls over, knocks over furniture

“I’m okay! I’m a guest now.”

Guest experience is the kind of thing that can make it seem like the easiest, most fun thing in the world to buy every single thing requested on your wedding registry, including the extra-large wok, the set of Martha Stewart flatware and an apron that says, “Caution: Man Cooking.”

Guest experience invites a domino-effect of karma and philanthropy (Karmanthropy). Guests could remember how they felt at your wedding and that good feeling could encourage benevolence, empathy, and volunteerism. I’m saying that a positive guest experience at a wedding could help make the world a better place. I’m saying that good guest experience could save the world. (Well, it sure wouldn’t hurt.)

What improves guest experience/saves the world? Quality drinks. Plentiful food. Short lines at food stations and bars. Heavily passed drinks and snacks. Live musicians. Humor. Pleasant surprises. Gifts. Swag. Attention to detail. A funny celebrant who knows what he or she is doing. A venue that is the kind of place to which guests never go. A venue where the guests can walk from the ceremony to the cocktail hour in less than 60 seconds. Personalized place settings. Welcomes specific to geography, nationality, and language. A mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. Excuses to let hair down. A venue with views and photo ops. An Instagram station, including a frame with all the pertinent details of hashtaggery. An expertly designed cake and an impressive gluten-free, sugar-free cake for your dieting and diabetic friends.

And thanks—always expedite thanks. Spread thanks through the room with frequency, authenticity, and specificity.

HANDFASTING: Go back far enough in history, and this is how people referred to weddings. This also refers to the symbolic act of binding the couple’s hands together during a ceremony. There is nothing fast about a Handfasting. (See also KNOT, TYING THE)

HASHTAGS: Hashtags are a fun way to group all the photos your guests take at your wedding on Instagram so everyone can see how much fun everyone else was having and so you can have a free photo album that makes you wonder why you hired a photographer. #SpendMoreOnYourCelebrant

They are also an excellent opportunity to practice summarizing your wedding theme in one clever phrase. As Mark Twain wrote, “I didn’t have time to write a short note, so I wrote a long one.” Even Mark Twain had a hard time with hashtags. Brevity is hard to accomplish. This is why people who work in advertising make the big bucks. The good news is, if ever there was a time to think up puns, this is it!

#JoeAndKellyGetMarried (pretty on-the-nose)

#JoePutARingOnIt (better—Beyoncé reference)

#LivingInSinclair (now we’re having pun)

#SingleNoMore (nice reference to Gallow Green’s Sleep No More, which is itself a take on Macbeth)

#LoveAtDurstSite (play on words if you marry Fred Durst)

#JaneysGotAGunderson (whipping out the Aerosmith reference)

#TheWrightStuff (this feels so Wright)

#MyOldManning (nice play on “old man” and the last name of a former football quarterback)

#DoveActually (referencing a famous love movie by changing “love” to the groom’s last name in exactly one letter)

The Wedding Hashers (www.weddinghashers.com) is a PHENOMENAL site to visit if you are stumped with your own hashtag. They employ professional writers to come up with hashtags in bunches for you. I am one of their writers. #ShamelessPlug #FortBrag #HasherIBarelyKnowEr

(See also INSTAGRAM)

IMAM: A Muslim cleric, someone who stands in front of everyone in a mosque and leads prayers. Islamic wedding practices vary around the world.

INQUIRY: Every vendor/client relationship begins with an inquiry. On The Knot, the boilerplate goes like this: “Hi! I found you on The Knot and would love more information on your services and pricing.”

This site-generated text is completely impersonal. This sends a message to the vendor that you are incapable of writing a sentence on your own, have no idea how the world really works, and that you are probably just trying to reach out to lots of vendors with as little effort as possible. While your vendor may overlook this, chances are you have already turned off a professional who might have been a really good fit for your wedding.

To help forge a connection with a vendor who looks like they may be a great match for your wedding, reach out with a personal inquiry, one that shows that you have researched this vendor, and that you have a specific reason for reaching out to them.

Try this approach: “Hi [specific vendor’s name], I found your listing on The Knot, read some of your reviews, went to your website, loved what I saw, and feel as if your unique, personal style is just what my fiancé(e) and I are looking for in a wedding vendor. We would love to speak with you on the phone at your earliest convenience.”

INSTAGRAM: Instagram is a social sharing site for photos and videos. Using your smartphone, you can, for example, take a photo of the ceremonial space, post it on your Instagram page, and wait for the adulation from your followers to roll in. Instagram etiquette suggests you give credit to all vendors involved in the wedding, whether via directly listing their Instagram name or by including them in a hashtag. A hashtag (#, the thing that looks like a tic-tac-toe board—if you are under age thirty-five, you are probably insulted that I am describing what a hashtag is. I sincerely apologize if I have offended you) is a grouping mechanism that allows you to focus your search within Instagram so you can see all the photos associated with a particular wedding. (Older people: think of it as the name of a folder, only you’re not allowed to use spaces between words.)

On Instagram, other users can ‘heart’ your post, comment on your post, share your post, or ignore your post. Each heart and comment fuels your sense of self-worth. Each poorly-received post deflates your ego and makes you feel like you’re at a party with nobody to talk to. (Instaglum.)

(See also HASHTAGS)

INVITATION: Invitations are the things sent out to guests to let them know you’d like them to be present at your wedding. Invitations are perhaps the hardest thing to figure out other than deciding who to marry. Who will you invite to your wedding? Who will you NOT invite? These are sensitive questions and must be agonized over with mothers. If you have no mothers available, find girlfriends. Every angle of invite or non-invite must be examined so thoroughly that one or both of you will become an alcoholic before the wedding day. (If you are already an alcoholic: get help.)

An invitation to attend a wedding is a flattering outreach of love. If you agree to attend, you agree that you will make babysitting, flight, hotel, rental car, and other arrangements and not give the couple a hard time about any of it because you would expect them to do the same for your wedding.

JUDGE: A person wearing a giant black robe who performs wedding ceremonies at the City Clerk’s office. Judges’ weddings are some of the fastest, least expensive, most perfunctory, and least personal in the land. People who get married by a judge tend to be either in a hurry (perhaps a military deployment is imminent), financially unable to have a large wedding, hiding from their families, or all the above. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of these scenarios. (And thank you to our military for serving our country.)

JUMPING THE BROOM: Jumping the broom is a curious wedding tradition popular among African Americans because . . . well, it is difficult to determine why. Research proves conflicting. Some say the tradition comes from Ghana. Some say it comes from Scotland, others say it comes from Wales. Some say slave owners used to make slaves jump over a broom in their wedding ceremony just to mock them. Some say the broom represents the couple bonding with the domestic life, which of course included brooms. Some say the broom represents sweeping away the past to clear a way for a new life. Some say it reminds them of a time when slaves were not allowed to legally marry. Some say the splayed-out part of the broom represents all the other people at the wedding, and the long handle represents the couple, which does not explain the jumping. Some say brooms were waved above the couple’s head to ward off spirits, which also does not explain the jumping part. Some say it represented the bride’s agreement to sweep out the courtyard. I don’t know too many brides who would be nuts about that idea.

Still others see jumping over the broom as a way to defy witchcraft.

It may be that this tradition will mean something else entirely in a hundred years; rituals can morph and change along with the people who practice them.

Generally, the notion of sweeping away the old to welcome what’s new is pretty clean symbolism. Crossing a threshold is certainly what couples do when they become married, so jumping over a broom is a tidy symbolism twofer.

I think it would be pretty unique to watch a couple jump over a broom, especially the bride, if she forgets to remove her delicate high heels before she jumps. And I think it would be downright culturally apt for a half-African (or half-Welsh) half-Jewish couple to combine rituals by jumping over a broom . . . and landing on a glass, thus breaking it.

To me the jumping part is the most entertaining, so why not accentuate the jump with a trampoline? And the landing should really spark something visually and auditory stimulating like a light show and music; let the landing kick-off a celebration.

And why stop at a broom? Why not an entire obstacle course? Once marriage begins, the jumping just keeps on going, and some hurdles are more difficult than others. Boxes of diapers, piles of tax forms, calendars, keys, real estate brokers, stethoscopes, so many things can symbolize life thresholds and most of these things can be jumped over. (Underscore every jump with opening synth chords of Van Halen’s “Jump.”)

KARAT: A karat is a unit of measurement for diamonds. The higher the number of karats, the more superficial the bride is and/or the less confident the groom is in the bride and/or the more the groom hopes the bride will forgive him his future frugality.

Karat cake is not a thing, but it would be a great title for the wedding cake. Just put a big sign by it that says “Karat Cake.” It’s about diamonds, but it’s gold.

(See also DIAMONDS)

KARMA: Karma is the surveillance video of your entire life. Karma sees everything. Yes, even that. It is an invisible world force that feeds on and affects itself in equal and opposite balance based on what one puts out into the world. If a person puts good vibes out into the world, good vibes will come back to that person in equal measure.

For example, if a person performs an act of selfless, generous kindness for a stranger, it may be that the love of their life might walk right around the corner, sweep that selfless person off their feet and marry them. On the other hand, if a person does something mean to a co-worker, like replace his real coffee with decaf, the love of their life might walk right around the corner, sweep them off their feet, marry them and then, months later, reveal that he or she is, in fact, the worst tipper they’ve ever seen. Like, embarrassingly cheap.

KNOT,THE: The Knot is the place where all wedding vendors should advertise. Their hefty print publication could be used as a doorstop or to clobber someone who doesn’t tip well. Their online presence is at www.theknot.com. I owe most of my career to The Knot. I love The Knot. I am Knot-ical. I am Knotty by nature. I am tied to The Knot. I do not have a sponsorship deal with The Knot (yet!).

You could spend days on The Knot website searching for florists, photographers, caterers, DJs, musicians, portrait artists, counselors, venues, and officiants. In addition to providing a link to the absolute best in the business, they have a review-based system for allowing the cream of the crop to rise to the top of the mountain and shine like a star while angels sing and trumpets blare. Vendors who receive a certain number of positive reviews within a certain time frame win the coveted The Knot Best of Weddings award. Vendors who receive enough ‘Best of’ awards are voted into The Knot Hall of Fame.

The Knot is so important in the wedding industry (HOW . . . IMPORTANT . . . IS IT?) I made a list of explanatory comparisons. Find the one that appeals to you!

•For my baseball fan audience: The Knot is the Yankees of weddings.

•For my football fan audience: The Knot is the New England Patriots of weddings.

•For my basketball fan audience: The Knot is the Michael Jordan of weddings.

•For my hockey fan audience: The Knot is the Wayne Gretzky of weddings.

•For my European Soccer fan audience: The Knot is the Real Madrid of weddings.

•For my financial page audience: The Knot is the Warren Buffett of weddings.

•For my comedy-loving audience: The Knot is the Stephen Colbert of weddings.

•For my jewelry-loving audience: The Knot is the Tiffany’s of weddings.

•For my five-star restaurant-loving audience: The Knot is the Noma of weddings.

•For my opera-loving audience: The Knot is the Luciano Pavarotti of weddings, only alive.

•For my theater-loving audience: The Knot is the Bette Midler in Hello Dolly of weddings.

•Actually, The Knot is if Rent,The Producers,The Book of Mormon, and Hamilton were all rolled into one show called Hamilton Rents a Mormon Book Producer (Named Evan Hansen). It would be timely, socially conscious, historical, hilarious, have a dubious plotline, and would probably star Nathan Lane.

•For my French audience: The Knot is the France of weddings.

KNOT, TYING THE: The Knot is also something couples tie, literally, for symbolic reasons, during the handfasting ceremony. I get the symbolism. I don’t need the symbolism, but I get the symbolism. The officiant, or a family member, or multiple family members, wrap a cord or rope or scarf or Christmas lights or duct tape or hockey skates around the couple’s joined hands while saying poetic, meaningful things about them and marriage, and then finishes by tying a knot, symbolizing that the couple is bonded together. As they stand there with their hands tied, do they look like prisoners or kidnapping victims? Maybe. Would that suggest that marriage can be a prison or something into which people enter against their will? I don’t know—why would anyone bring up such a thought? Jeez. At that point, someone should announce that the symbolism of the ritual is over because the next thing that happens is this: the couple extricates themselves from the knot, preserving the knot itself as a keepsake, a process designed to be easy—and, while this double-Houdini escape trick is not meant to be symbolic, it kinda can’t help being so.

”Wow. They sure got out of those ropes easily. Was that part of it? Are we to believe that their bond is tenuous at best?”

“Please stop talking.”

LIVE MUSIC: Even though there is a certain amount of security in having a DJ and recorded music, an assurance that the bands will hit all the right notes because you know they did while they were recording the music, having a live musician is a surefire way to make your wedding ceremony unique.

Live music played before the ceremony, as guests arrive, helps establish a mood. Classical music is classy, jazz is iconic, pop music is cheerful. String trios are great. Solo guitarists are great. Drummers are great. If I could, I’d have a street-drummer from a New York subway play before every wedding I officiate.

Plus, live musicians can elongate a song for a processional that takes longer than we think it will, or play surprise interludes during awesome love stories, or switch from pop to classical in a second. Live musicians lend an air of dignity to weddings that a huge black table covered in computers and wires can’t.

LOVE: Love is a complicated thing. Love is a motivator, a jester, a raison d’être. Love underwrites weddings, at least, these days. In the past (and, still, sadly, today) many marriages were/are arranged, mere business transactions between families. Love is more of an active participant these days, at least in the free world.

Love makes people do things they would never do, say things they’d never say, buy things they’d never buy. Love inspires poets, cinematographers, and romance novelists. Love seduces the young, the old, and the people who are sort of getting old but tell people they are a few years younger than they really are. Love dissolves reason. Love finds solutions. Love heals. Love flows. Love must be like fish: moving forward with constant energy. Love goes well with music, sofas, and sunsets. Love happens when two grown adults are sitting in bathtubs that happen to be side by side in a field. Love reduces things to their essential soul. Love emerges like a butterfly’s wings. Love adds spice like hot sauce to Buffalo wings.

Love reveals itself slowly. Love tackles you. Love was in front of you all along. Love calls long-distance. Love was calling from inside the house! Love is inside you. Love is in a pair of hands. Love is in a glance. Love is in every inch of Paris. (Paris, France that is. Paris, Texas is full of railroads.)

Love makes a person dedicate himself or herself to the eternal task of ensuring happiness for another human being, which then, in the best of circumstances, ensures happiness for the person who does the ensuring. (Life Ensurance) Love is a product of karma, and karma is a product of love.

I’d like to point out that I got through this whole section without mentioning that love is a battlefield. (So close!)

MARRIAGE: Marriage is more than a booty call without the commute. It is completely outside the scope of this book. When people ask me to officiate their marriage, I point out that that would be impossible, because when it comes to syntax, I’m a jerk.

Planning a wedding is a hazing ritual that can give you a sneak-peek at marriage. You learn what you’re each like when taking on a project. One of you may lead. You may divide tasks equally. One of you may do everything. One of you may be a little bit too into shopping for the dress, and it may not be the woman.

I’m glad people take a long time to plan their weddings because, in that time, they learn a lot about each other and encounter problems early on. When I hear about a wedding being canceled, I’m disappointed at first, but I’m happy that people identify their relationship weaknesses before they take the actual leap of getting married. This is also why my retainer fee is non-refundable.

MARRIAGE LICENSE: The marriage license is the most important object of the entire wedding. Sure, you might have spent $500 a piece on your table decorations, but the license, which costs all of $35 at the City Clerk’s office (2018 New York prices; your City Clerk experience may differ), is the only thing that will help you transition from not married to totally married.

Of course, in a way, it costs more than $35; it costs your entire life. No pressure! Choose wisely. (#IDoDiligence)

Every state has a different way of handling marriage licenses. I advise couples to research what they need to obtain a marriage license first and foremost. It would be a shame to go through the whole wedding hazing ritual and come out of it not married because you never remembered to get your license. That’s just stupid, although sure enough, I’ve seen it happen.

Signing the marriage license can be fun too. Always grab your photographers to get them to capture the signing. It is a Norman Rockwell-worthy moment, a tradition and rite of passage that all couples must go through. Jokes abound. Someone always says something like, “Don’t do it!” or “You can still say no!” Sometimes that person is me. Sometimes I’m not joking. The jokes are nearly part of the license-signing ritual. And yet, the license is no joke. Signing the license is the only thing that has to happen for couples to be married. The rest is to make sure that everyone knows how important it is. (And to keep me and my colleagues employed.)

In Europe, it is common to sign the license during the ceremony; not so much in the states. Americans feel it’s a bit of a time drag, mostly because it’s a time drag. There is so much pressure to get to cocktail hour, and signing the license does take a few minutes that could be spent downing signature drinks. However, since New York attracts wedding couples from around the world, I do, on occasion, end up putting the signing into the ceremony. There are ways to make this fun: I invite absolute silence while each signer signs, like at a golf match as a golfer putts, then pandemonium upon each signing, signature by signature, until I sign at the end. I take inspiration from (meaning: I rip-off) Jimmy Fallon’s “Thank You Notes” segment on The Tonight Show, with license-signing music and unnecessarily dramatic pauses, pen held aloft, then swiftly applied to paper.

Thank you, Jimmy Fallon, for giving me such an easy gag to rip off.

Sincerely, Every Wedding Officiant.

MARRY (verb): to agree to share your life inside and out with another human being for the rest of your life and/or theirs. Forever. For eternity. You and your beloved. The two of you. That’s it. Choose wisely. Good luck!

#AreYouSure, #MeasureTwiceCutOnce, #SocialConstruct

MATRIMONY: This is the state of being married. It is an altared state. (Send all your comments on this joke to me on the back of a ten-dollar bill.)

MEMORY BOXES: A memory box is a time capsule of love. Couples incorporate a memory box into their ceremony to ensure future sentiment and for emotional insurance in case of hard times. The memory box is literally a box, usually hand-crafted by an old man somewhere in Santa Fe or the Berkshires, designed to look attractive when displayed on mantelpieces, side tables, or toilets. Couples fill the memory box with all sorts of things, usually including a bottle of wine and a few letters. The wine might be a vintage from the vineyard where they got engaged, or from the wine store in Covington where they first dabbled in shoplifting. The letter might be something romantic or something to remind them of how happy they were on their wedding day or to remind them of what bad writers they were on their wedding day.

Some couples want language in the ceremony explaining that they intend to open the box on their fifth, tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth (etc.) anniversary. Other couples are more skeptical (they open it after two weeks), and want language explaining that they intend to open the box, read the letters and drink the wine when their marriage is in trouble, or they’ve had a big fight, or one of them gets imprisoned for shoplifting. I’m not a fan of this approach—I understand that the letters within, read years after the trials of marriage have worn nerves thin, may revive the love that began it all, especially if they also down the whole bottle of wine on an empty stomach. I still don’t like introducing any suggestion of negativity to the ceremony. That’s just me. Just call me Positive Pauly. (No, don’t. Don’t ever call me that.)

We could make this unique! Guests can enter a betting pool, wagering on dates the couple will open the box. I mean if you’re going to entertain negative thoughts, make the negative thoughts entertaining! Have the box locked and have the lock linked to an app that alerts all the guests the moment it’s opened, with automatic links hooked up to the betting pool. There must be some scientific way to do this. Trademark! #WeddingMarchMadness

Other things I would not suggest putting into a memory box: a loaded pistol, a knife, a live bird, a photo of each other naked, a photo of your hot sister naked, any yogurt, your smartphone, your own prediction for your marriage fail date . . .

(See also RITUALS)

MONEY: This is a big one. This is one of the two biggest reasons anybody does anything, the other being sex. And when you combine sex and money, you’ve got something impossible to explain to your first or second wife. Money is a huge consideration for couples planning a wedding, and stating this is one of the biggest understatements of the year, not that there is an official competition for understatements. Although there should be. On average, couples spend between $17,000 and $77,000 on their wedding. I know, right? (I’m so glad for it! Keep spending, couples!!! Cha-ching!!!) Think of how many vacations you could go on for either of those amounts. Planning a wedding is a constant battle between what you want and what you or your parents can afford. Everything costs money. For some reason, even the most frugal couples toss their frugality out the window, where it splatters on the neighbor’s window across the alley. People who regret spending $1 on Hostess cupcakes spend $1,000 on a cake. Couples who eat canned tuna for their only source of protein spend $8,000 on catering for their hundred guests. First of all, who invites 100 people to dinner and then picks up the bill? When it’s wedding time, couples feel pressure to produce a huge event. Wedding professionals will do nothing to dissuade them from doing this.

Come to think of it, I’m a wedding professional.

Hey, you know what? You know all that money you have in the bank or invested in stocks? You should cash it all out and spend it on your wedding, or your child’s wedding. Yeah. I read somewhere—maybe Golf Digest, maybe it was Forbes Magazine—that the more you spend on your wedding, the longer the glaciers will last.

MOTHER NATURE: Mother Nature is the angriest single mother. She is the original Diva. She is a fickle shrew determined to be the center of attention. Mother Nature loves outdoor weddings because that’s when she gets to even the score. What score? Who knows? Like I said, she’s fickle. Thanks to global warming, she’s experiencing a prolonged menopause, so anything can happen. It could be too hot, it could be too cold, it could rain . . . it will do whatever the heck Mother Nature wants it to do. The earth is her show. You try to change her climate, she’s going to change yours.

When people tell you that rain at a wedding is good luck, it’s because they can’t hear the music over your crying. When it’s too hot and humid at a wedding, nobody tells you that it’s good luck because they’re too annoyed at you for holding an outdoor wedding during the summer with no air-conditioned indoor plan B.

NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES:

Similes:

Sugar-free chocolate

Weapon-free military

Jim Belushi

On the one hand: why?

On the other hand, non-alcoholic beverages are useful for children, and recovering alcoholics. People on restrictive diets might like them; try to seat those people together.

NUPTIALS: A word used to refer to a wedding when you are really sick of using the word “wedding” or are trying to sound chummy with a buddy at the trucker bar without revealing that you secretly crave a wedding as elaborate as Princess Diana’s even though on a macro level that whole thing did not end well.

“Me ‘n Margie’s doin’ our nuptials in August down on the dock.”

“August? Gonna be hot as my armpits in the attic while I’m hidin’ from my mother-in-law. You got an air-conditioned indoor plan B?”

“Nope.”

“Then I can’t make it, sorry.”

“I ain’t even tol’ you the date yet.”

“Look at the time. Gotta walk ma’ dawg.” [drops a ten on the counter, leaves]

“You don’t have a dawg . . .”

OBJECTIONS: I have no problem with objections. I object to questions about objections in a ceremony. You know the scenario: late in the ceremony, the person presiding over the wedding asks if anyone sees any reason why this man or woman should not be married to this woman or man. Everyone glances around the room, and then the movie’s hero stands up, tells the bride he’s always loved her, that he can’t see her marry this putz, a huge fight ensues, and when the melee ends, the hero is in the bride’s arms in the back of a school bus, while guests continue to set things on fire behind them.

In olden days, this question may have been a good one, one last shot for reason to prevail. But really, why would anyone wait until the wedding to object? The time to object was during the engagement period after your eighteen-year-old daughter decided to marry her fifty-year-old Biology teacher.

A clever officiant could fake people out, and then ask, “Does anyone object to . . . HAVING FUN?” Then start the cocktail hour with a Bon Jovi anthem and a balloon drop.

OFFICIANT: An officiant is someone who has become licensed in a particular state or states to legally solemnize weddings. They are likely to have a performance background, or some cursory training in some kind of spiritual practice. They are men, except when they are women.

A divorced officiant would be an example of irony. (Not to Alanis Morissette.) (Hi kids! That’s what we call a ‘90s reference!)

OLD MAN: A way a wife may refer to her husband.

OLD LADY: A way a husband may refer to his wife if he enjoys being pummeled with a skillet.

OUTDOOR WEDDINGS: Outdoor weddings sound romantic. A sun-swept lawn, a ceremony space framed by trees, a lazy river rolling along behind it all. It seems like a photogenic, picture-perfect idea. How lovely it will be to hear a light breeze whispering through the trees, the gentle buzz of cicadas, and the warmth of the sun on your face as you join together in matrimony with the love of your life.

This idyllic fantasy does happen in real life, it really does. In general, though, if you decide to have an outdoor wedding, and you have no indoor or sheltered Plan B, you are risking a lot.

Imagine an outdoor ceremony space in the month of August, or even July, or June, or September. The grass is uneven, making walking in high heels or after the age of seventy difficult. The sun is out, not a cloud in the sky, and not due to set for another two or three hours. The heat is piercing and relentless. The humidity rests on everyone like a layer of expired butter. A few hundred mosquitoes are having their own wedding party at the same venue. Everyone is wearing fancy clothing - fancy, heavy, hot clothing. Shirts are sticking to backs, armpits are soaked, and I don’t even want to suggest what’s happening down there.

Your guests feel disgusting. Some of them have not eaten in hours, in hopes that they will fit into the sexiest clothing they own. They are dehydrated. They are squinting directly into the sun. Bugs are buzzing by their heads. Young Jeremy got stung by a bee. Aunt Emma swatted at a mosquito, missed, and instead sliced Uncle Jim’s cornea. None of them are paying attention to the ceremony. Instead, they are focusing their ire on you for choosing to hold an outdoor ceremony. In their minds, they are composing emails they may never send to you. They are swearing under their breath. They are swearing over their breath. They are taking the Lord’s name in vain and embellishing his name with inappropriate middle names. Grandmas are rethinking their wills. The wine in the memory box is going sour. The unity candle is more symbolic of the guests’ shared annoyance at you than your unity. The officiant is thinking about how he should have charged you more, even if only to cover his dry-cleaning.

Imagine if you’d forked over $150 to see a hit Broadway play, but they’d decided to hold it in an outdoor venue in the middle of August. Wouldn’t you want your money back? Why risk the biggest production of your life to the whims of Mother Nature? Everyone knows that Mother Nature is exhausted, temperamental, and smokes five packs a day.

I can’t think of any other situation in which people would invite people to sit for thirty minutes or longer (lots of people arrive early) in a baking hot space and have the balls to tell them the event is black tie. Why would anyone make their grandmother sit inside a sweat lodge? Who in their right mind would make their poor groomsmen stand in the blinding sunlight for a whole ceremony? Somehow, the fact that it’s a wedding is supposed to make it okay? It is not okay. It is cruel.

People say, “Oh, but I’ve always dreamed of having an outdoor wedding.” I get it—I’ve dreamed of things too, but dreams are often not realistic. Just because you’ve dreamt of something doesn’t mean it can or should happen.

Here are some outdoor wedding realities:

•Outdoor wedding on a beach: a strong wind flopping dresses, veils and ceremony pages every which way, whipping sand into people’s faces, sunlight piercing the epidermal layer of everyone present.

•Outdoor wedding lake-side: bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Bug bites. Bugs buzzing.

•Outdoor wedding in a public park: heat, humidity, bugs, confusing parking, tourists, sketchy bathrooms or worse: port-o-potties.

•Outdoor weddings in the early spring or fall, in the Northeastern part of the US: cold. Hypothermia becomes the concern, instead of heat stroke or fainting. Nobody wants to show up at a wedding in their thickest winter gear, so they wear clothing unsuited to the cold. The guests have it hardest because they are just sitting there the whole time, whereas the bridal party at least gets to walk and stand up. Brides never want to compromise their dress, so they stand in the chill, shaking, shivering, and freezing, just to look good in photos. Mankind worked really hard to design indoor wedding spaces; use them. What’s the point of coming up with a unique, meaningful ceremony that nobody enjoys because they are intensely physically uncomfortable?

Some people get lucky and have comfortable, lovely outdoor weddings. I’m sure many people reading this book will have stories of their perfect outdoor wedding where everyone was comfortable or lied to them about being comfortable. That’s great, and I am very happy for these people. My point in bringing up this horror-story caution is that I’ve been a celebrant at so many uncomfortable outdoor weddings, I’m amazed the word hasn’t gotten out that they are a possibility.

Why risk it? Make sure you have a comfortable, nearby, sheltered area ready to be your Plan B.

OPEN BAR: These two words are all you need to remember when planning your cocktail hour. Once the ceremony is over, your guests gravitate toward the bar like moths to flames or Steven Soderbergh to heist films. Guests who drink are thrilled at the prospect of free drinks, guests who don’t drink try drinking because hey, it’s free, and guests who shouldn’t drink do drink because everybody else is drinking. People fall off wagons. People cannonball off wagons into wading pools. Deciding to have an open bar is like deciding to have Baz Luhrmann choreograph all the dance numbers for the reception. Open bars are an invitation to lowered inhibitions, revelry, and celebration.

When a guest orders a drink and has to fork over cash . . . oy vey. The message guests take from a cash bar is ‘Not only do we not care how much our wedding has already cost you, but your philosophy of alcohol as a solution is your problem. We’d prefer that you remain sober and respectful as we celebrate our perfect love the way it was always intended to be celebrated: like butlers at a funeral. Sincerely, Mr. and Mrs. Stuffypants Killjoy.’

PACHELBEL’S “CANON IN D”: Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” is “The Star-Spangled Banner” of weddings. Johnny “Tight-Knickers” Pachelbel, or whatever his name was, wrote this piece of music about his camera one day in Germany after ingesting a plate of bratwurst. Most people don’t know that the piece is supposed to be played three times as fast with a reggae beat. The version of Pachelbel’s “Canon” that most people know is a dirge so beautiful, angels swoon when they hear it. Mothers begin crying as soon as they hear the opening chords. It is known among wedding pros as “Taco Bell’s Canon” (Yo Quiero Pachelbel). Also, some people feel the need to specify it as “Canon in D,” although I’ve never heard it described as being in any other key. Would “Canon in G” be better? Is G a key? I’m not a musician. I mean, maybe we should give “Canon in Q” a try.

PEOPLE WHO CAN PERFORM YOUR WEDDING CEREMONY AND MAKE YOU LEGALLY MARRIED: (See: CERTIFIED LIFE-CYCLE CELEBRANT^®, FRIEND, JUDGE, OFFICIANT, PRIEST, IMAN, RABBI, SHIP’S CAPTAIN)

PETS: Aren’t pets adorable? Well, yours are. Some people like to include their pets in the wedding ceremony. (Same people who take them on airplanes?) Why? Some college kid somewhere must have written a thesis paper about this, and if they haven’t, what are they waiting for? We don’t have time to delve into the psychology of people who bring pets to ceremonies. (He’s my plus-woof.)

Some couples love pets, and that’s cool. Some couples use a co-owned pet as a sneak preview of how each other will be as a parent of a human being. For example, if their pet Pug Mr. Pugly can live for several years, get accepted into the University of Alabama and make them proud, maybe a human baby they produce will do just as well. If the couple has a hard time maintaining any pet longer than a few weeks and spends a lot of time flushing dead pets down the toilet even when they’re not fish, perhaps that does not bode well for the potential life span of any human baby they create.

Some couples know that they can’t have children and others know they don’t want to have children, so the pet they co-own becomes their surrogate child. The pet features in their engagement photos and their wedding registry. The pet no doubt needs to be part of the ceremony.

Many couples want to have their pets attend the wedding, but their venue denies them this joy because the venue does not allow pets. A great solution for couples is to use photographs and the local Staples store to create life-sized cardboard cutouts of their pets, so they can be placed at significant spots during the ceremony. Later, at cocktail hour and the reception, people can include the cutouts in fun photos.

Come to think of it, couples can do the same with family members who can’t make it to the ceremony. Or with celebrities they wish were at their ceremony.

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Photographers are people who see more with one eye than most people do with two. Wedding days have become day-long photo sessions. Wedding ceremonies are recorded by multiple photo and video professionals. Even in the most dramatic moments, with the bride making a dramatic entrance and walking up the artfully decorated aisle, there’s a photographer kneeling between her and the groom, trying to capture the look on her face as she walks up the aisle. Then the photographer steps in front of the bride’s family, blocking their view of the father giving the bride away. Occasionally a photographer will step close to the couple as they exchange rings, trying to get a close-up view of the hands as the rings slip along their fingers.

The photographers who get this close, who are this obtrusive, are bad photographers. These are photographers who don’t know how to use a zoom lens.

Most professional wedding photographers are unobtrusive. Some of them are so subtle, they could dress like Lady Gaga and you still would have no idea they are there.

Ideally, photographers work in teams. This way, they have help setting up lighting equipment and they can split up to capture moments in multiple rooms or the same moments from different angles.

The best photographers will capture moments nobody could ever foresee: the wistful look in a parent’s eye, a child overcome with giggles, a groomsman making out with your cousin in the coat-check room. These are moments you won’t want to miss.

I kid, but some of my best friends are wedding photographers. Good ones will see what you can’t see and capture it for you. Get a good photographer.

PHOTO SHOOT: If we all had better memories, we wouldn’t need photos to remember things, but just like teenagers who lie and community theater productions of Annie, photos are here to stay.

With good reason: what would Pinterest be without photos? Imagine if Pinterest was just a bunch of things people tried to describe with words. (A wooden ampersand! A cloud that looks like Delaware! A baby stuck to a wall with Velcro!) Photos make magazines more readable, scrapbooks more colorful, blackmail more lucrative.

Couples want photographs of the venue, the venue’s lawn, and the venue’s giant entrance sign. They want photos of the limousine that drops off the bridal party, the driver of the limo, the driver of the limo posing seductively on the hood. They want photos of the welcome table, the guest book, the basket of mints in the men’s room. They want photos of the family photos, some of which are photos of family photos at other weddings. They want photos of the ceremony space before and after the florists work their magic. They want close-ups of vines and flowers and topiary. They want views from the roof and from ankle-level. They want photos of the chairs and those standing candle-holder things that people put at the row entrances if they are masochists. They want photos of the dining tables, the centerpieces, the dance floor, the band, the band’s equipment and instruments. They want photos of guests arriving, sitting down, standing up, eating, drinking, and dancing.

They want posed photos of family members in various combinations. Here are some ideas to help you and your photogs have the Best. Photo Session. Ever.

Once you’ve shot the usual combination of the whole family, men, women, bride’s family, groom’s family, friends . . .

Mix it up. Crank some music, give them some drinks, get them dancing. Whether they’re doing their own groove, a synchronized Macarena, a whip/nae-nae, an electric slide, or a combination of all these dances (an Electric Macanae-nae) these will be awesome photos. Here are some ideas with corresponding music ideas.

•Maybe some grinding for all the couples (Marvin Gaye)

•Get the grandmas decked out in bling and have them do some gangsta posing (Jay-Z)

•Manic freestyle rocking for the ring bearer and flower girl (Green Day)

•A Venetian masquerade, with those masques on sticks (Vitamin String Ensemble)

•Scarves (Fleetwood Mac)

•Top hats and canes (Duke Ellington)

•Best Man in the Philly Fanatic costume (David Lee Roth solo work)

•Glasses with mustaches and noses (Bruno Mars)

•Clown noses (Insane Clown Posse)

•Elton John-like jackets (Elton John)

•Lady Gaga-like outfits (Lady Gaga)

•Enormous shoes (Justin Timberlake)

•Is there a trampoline nearby? Let’s use it. (Katy Perry)

•Get everyone to jump rope as one! (Beyoncé)

•How about a bed of hot coals? (Mighty Mighty Bosstones)

In other words, try anything other than just having everyone stand there struggling to smile.

Mix up the location. Do you have access to a golf course? Just think of the sand trap photo ops! (They look like little beaches!)

Is there a street nearby with no traffic on it? (Make family members walk across the street, one of them barefoot, like the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road.) Do you have access to a rooftop? What about a meat locker? A skating rink? A brewery? A wine cellar? What about an S&M red room or a Pilates studio (if you can tell the difference)? Use any space you can to create something memorable.

The only thing to avoid is getting anybody injured doing some kind of contortion beyond their scope, which is why I am not mentioning the idea of a cheerleader-style family pyramid or a grandmothers-only trust-fall.

PINTEREST: The photo-sharing site where complete strangers give couples ideas and/or make them feel that they are in an inferior creative sphere. Pinterest is a great place to brainstorm wedding ideas. You can sort of attend weddings around the world on Pinterest. I don’t have a sponsorship from Pinterest (yet!) but I strongly suggest you allow your mind to absorb thousands of wedding photos until your mind blends as one with the site; then, if nothing else, you will know what your wedding planner’s brain is like.

PLAN B: If you are planning on having an outdoor wedding, you should also have an indoor (or at least sheltered) plan B to which you can turn in the event of inclement weather. Imagine having all your dressed-up guests standing around in the rain as you try to decide where to send all of them. Picture the water ruining your dress, makeup running down your face and the Bridesmaids’ faces, hair flattened, the chill of water dripping down your spine, the empty clarity that you have made a terrible error in judgment by not heeding this book’s warnings about outdoor weddings. Picture the looks on your family’s faces as they glare at you, waiting for instructions, wind whipping their hearing aids out of their ears, chairs overturning in the gale, children crying, old women trying to run but collapsing when their hips snap. Picture it! If you don’t have an indoor or sheltered plan B, this will come true!!! (Evil Empire Music)

PLANNING: Probably the easiest part of the whole process.

Kidding! Planning is such a huge part of a wedding, there is a whole type of professional dedicated to it: your Mom. Kidding! Sort of. Moms sort of become wedding planners the moment they become moms. This is why so many mothers see their baby for the first time, squeeze their husband’s arm, and command, ‘Hire a caterer.’

Here is all you have to plan—it’s really quite a short list, and I’m sure that as soon as you read it, which won’t take long, you will relax about the whole planning process—ready? Okay, here is all you have to plan:

•who to marry

•when to marry

•where to marry

•whom to invite

•what to feed them

•where to seat everyone for the reception dinner

•when to have your rehearsal

•when to have your rehearsal dinner

•where to have your rehearsal dinner

•where to have your day-after brunch

•which vendors to hire

•what to wear

•what rings you’ll give each other

•where guests will stay

•where guests will park

•what guests will do while they’re in town

•how to make the wedding ceremony unique

•how guests will get from the ceremony to cocktail hour

•how to pay for the whole thing

•how to get your parents to pay for the whole thing

•dozens of other miscellaneous things that pop up on the design end of things

See? Easy!

PRIEST: A leader who may perform the sacred rites and rituals of their religion; for example, a wedding ceremony. Many priests will be reluctant to perform a wedding ceremony outside of a church because rules is rules.

PROPOSAL: A marriage proposal is just a simple question that happens to have lifelong consequences for multiple people (you, your partner, and anybody involved in the office pool on when you’ll get engaged). That said, it’s the kind of question that shouldn’t be asked until the asker is sure that the answer is a foregone conclusion, with the question being a mere formality. Just as trial lawyers only ask questions to which they know the answers, by the time the proposer is proposing, he or she should really know what the answer will be, because the person being asked has already indicated that the question should be asked. Yeah, it’s complicated. In fact, it’s a four-part process:

•Part One: The Supposal

•Part Deux: Parental Permission

•Part Three: Finger Measuring/Ring Shopping

•Part D: Actual Proposal

Part One:Usually, the proposee knows a proposal is coming because she and her boyfriend have had an oblique, no-obligations, preliminary conversation about getting married, something I call “The Supposal.”

“Suppose we got married? Do you suppose that might be a good idea?”

“Sure, I suppose so.”

So the Supposal ™© precedes the proposal.

Part Deux, Parental Permission:After The Supposal, in traditional proposals, the groom asks the father of the bride for permission to marry his daughter. Once the groom obtains the dad’s permission, he concocts his big proposal plan. (Why shouldn’t the proposer have to ask the mother of the bride for her permission too? Doesn’t the wife make all the decisions in the marriage anyway? We all know she does.)

I would love to see this tradition upended: I’d love it if the woman would have to ask permission from the groom’s parents too—fair is fair, plus, just think how much more assured the couple could feel knowing that four parents approve versus only two? Yeah. Think about that.

Same-sex couples have struggled with the notion of “permission” for long enough—they have every right to adopt, reject, or redefine this tradition of permission seeking. On the one hand, perhaps both halves of any couple should ask the other half’s parents for permission; on the other hand, if marriage really is between two people—not four, not six—who says anyone needs parental permission, or any permission at all? That said, since marriage remains the only institution that joins families together (and these days our world can use all the harmony it can find), it would behoove anyone seeking to get married to have both families behind their decision.

If the couple asks one set of parents and gets a resounding “no,” then asks the other set of parents and gets a second resounding “no,” then asks friends, co-workers, and other family members for their opinions, and every which way they turn they find hesitation, doubt, subject-changing, sudden gaps in cell phone reception, and outright negative responses, it may be time to take a step back and reconsider things. Even if half of the people asked say “no” and the other half says “yes,” couples might want to reconvene at the old drawing board. Seeking permission is another way of seeking validation and reassurance. Marriage is the relationship Autobahn: when a couple is traveling at 120 miles per hour, they really ought to have miles of green lights awaiting them.

Chris, are you a feminist?

I prefer “genius sociological innovator.”

Part Three: Finger Measuring/Ring Shopping:Proposers need to accept this basic fact: the proposal itself will not and should not ever be a complete surprise, in that the proposee does not have any idea that the proposer wants to marry them. That scenario is both not fair and totally goes against protocol. So, don’t worry proposers, if you need to straight-up ask your girlfriend/partner what her ring size is and if she has any kind of preference for ring size/outlandishness/diamond requirement. This is totally normal and totally respectful of the protocol of this four-part process. The proposal itself should be a surprise and it still can be: just because they know you’re going to propose doesn’t mean they know how or when you will propose.

Part D: Actual Proposal:Traditionally, men ask women to marry them, and all the pressure is on them to come up with something memorable. (In same-sex couples, the rules are less defined because these couples have very little history upon which to call. Either half of the couple, or both members of the couple, may propose. Why can’t it be this way with opposite-sex couples? That was a trick question: it can, but tradition has a vice-grip on our collective psyche.)

Surprise may be the cornerstone of a story-worthy proposal, but knowing one’s audience is key. If a man asks his incredibly shy wallflower-standing-behind-another-wallflower girlfriend to marry him by putting them on the jumbotron at a sports event, thus putting her on the spot in front of thousands of people in the stadium, she should say no, then reconnect with the guitar player poet she dated sophomore year of college and then lost touch with when he transferred to Wesleyan. If his girlfriend is an outgoing, exuberant fellow sports nut who previously dated most of his fellow football teammates, great! This is a great idea in that scenario. If the girlfriend is incredibly shy, he should propose to her at home, in the dark, with the shades drawn, via text message.

Proposals are unique to each couple. Proposals can be public and elaborate, private and simple, private and elaborate, public and simple. These days, men make videos of their relationship, rent screen time in movie theaters, lie to their girlfriends about them seeing a private screening, then watch as the girlfriend cries throughout the video they spent a fortune producing with a buddy and some guy his buddy knows. (Just . . . don’t ask questions about the buddy.)

Men hire skywriters, clandestine photographers, and flash-mobs. Men try to outdo each other’s proposals, and they don’t even know each other! Men are competing against total strangers with their proposals just so their girlfriend can’t complain that they didn’t make an effort.

Okay, not all men go crazy with their proposals, but all of them try to incorporate surprise. The plan does not always work. Benches with sunset views are pummeled by rainstorms. Girlfriends have too much wine early in the dinner so by the time the proposal happens the girl is sauced. A private moment gets ruined by clueless strangers. Birds poop at just the wrong moment.

Timing is important: a lot of proposals happen in the days preceding the holidays, so people can show off their news to gathered relatives. They happen in ordinary moments when nothing extraordinary is going on. They happen at the beginning of a vacation so couples can spend the week celebrating something amazing; they happen at the end of vacations to make the trip home exciting.

There is an urgency these days to capture the proposal moment on camera and video. This necessitates co-conspirators, planning, timing, and strategy. As an older person who did not record his own proposal, I recommend only recording the moment in your own mind. I can go back to the moment I proposed to my wife in the baggage claim area at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas anytime I want, remember exactly what she was wearing, exactly what I was feeling, and the elation as she jumped into my arms and I spun her round and round. No piece of recording equipment other than my heart could possibly capture the elation I’d never felt before and have never felt since.* We have no photos of the moment, no video, nothing. Doesn’t matter. It’s right there in my head and hers.

If you need examples of how other proposals went down, head over to HowHeAsked.com, where they curate such things.

Every proposal boils down to one human being asking another human being to share their lives with them. A proposal is just a question the way the big bang was just an explosion. (Nobody has actual photos of the big bang but we’re all most impressed by it.)

*The Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 came close.

QUARREL: A quarrel is like an argument, only both of you are in the eighteenth century.

Quarrels are totally normal. Couples who say they don’t quarrel are either lying, telling the truth but have a huge quarrel coming their way, or prefer to use the word argue.

QUESTIONNAIRE: A questionnaire is an opportunity for the couple to write about themselves so that the person marrying them knows them better. Who doesn’t enjoy being asked about themselves? Well, criminals, probably. Other than criminals, most people enjoy regaling others about their relationship and how much they mean to each other. We are ego-driven life-forms in a social media–saturated world.

A questionnaire full of anecdotes about your relationship is the most useful thing you can give your wedding officiant (other than money), especially if you’ve been honest, forthcoming and generous with your personal facts. Don’t blow off the questionnaire. Do it. It’s critical to making a meaningful ceremony.

The only thing that short-circuits questionnaires are clichés: phrases like, “he’s my everything,” “she means the world to me,” and “he’s my rock” pop up in questionnaire responses all the time. They’re pretty useless. You can do better. You can’t be someone’s rock. Only rocks are rocks, only Ford Trucks are “like a rock.” And only Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Alcatraz the prison are The Rock.

Short answers don’t help much either: “We met at work.” “We met through mutual friends.” “We met on a Friday.” These all may be factual, but they are also vague and boring. Responses like this require follow-up and who’s got the time?

(See also Questions for Couples on page 139)

RABBI: A teacher of the Torah; an interpreter of Jewish law. For a wedding that takes place in a Jewish temple, couples will need a Rabbi to perform the wedding ceremony. Many Rabbis are reluctant to perform a wedding outside a temple, and certainly for any couple who may be interdenominational, because rules is rules.

READINGS: Passages from novels, poems, songs, encyclopedias, user’s manuals, soap opera transcripts, etc. that say something meaningful about love, marriage and/or the couple getting married.

If you want someone to do a reading during your wedding ceremony, choose someone who can actually speak well in public and enjoys doing so, otherwise the reading becomes a regrettable waste of time, like a grade-school production of The Iceman Cometh.

REASONS TO GET MARRIED: Why get married? The simplest and most complicated answer is love.

Love is a many-splendored mystery, impossible to understand how it works or to live without, like a smartphone: people want to find someone who feels comfortable in their hands, whose apps are easy to use and who will be responsive to their touch. They want someone who seems to know what they want even before they do. They want someone who will grow and change and update themselves with new, useful, exciting, and more efficient functions. They want someone they can afford to be with, who recharges when they plug them in and who looks good with very little to cover them.

While love plays a major role in relationships, the decision to marry can be influenced by several life factors. Like most big life decisions, the most common motivators are sex, money, and taxes. As fascinating as money and taxes are, let’s begin with sex. (Okay!)

Sex:Both men and women find great comfort in knowing that they are their partner’s only sex partner currently, with currently being from this day forward. It’s not easy to find someone with whom you would like to have exclusive sex for the rest of your life. I mean, there are tons of attractive people out there. How do you choose just one? And why on earth would anyone choose you? Sexual compatibility is a tricky thing to find, a complicated mixture of trust, love, and hunger that other experts would be better at explaining, plus, I’m trying to keep things clean here. Sure, the virgins out there might think that virgins marrying virgins is the optimal way to go, but what do virgins know? See? Even Grandma is horrified at that notion and believe me, Grandma is no virgin. I’d love to be romantic and say that virgins marrying virgins is a great idea, but I’d say it in a high-pitched reluctant voice while wearing my skeptic face. (I hope to demonstrate this face on TV one day.) Put another way, when you go to a restaurant, and you shell out $28 to have chicken parmesan for the first time or thirtieth time, do you hope that this is the first time the chef has prepared chicken parmesan, or would it be better if he’d made chicken parmesan for several people before you walked in the door? (And how many = several?)

Money:Money is obviously a big issue. I’ve seen every iteration of the comparison of finances: he doesn’t have money, but she does; she doesn’t have money, but he does; neither of them has money, but their parents do; their parents have no money, but they do. In the old days, marriages were a financial arrangement, and brides were just part of a bigger deal which often included real estate, oxen, and a third-round draft pick. These days, the financial aspect of a wedding union is gauche to talk about but everyone knows it’s there. Let’s just say that just as settlers seek out water sources, and rivers seek the ocean, less money seeks out more money.

Taxes:Taxes are a fact of life, like death and Jon Stewart cameos on Colbert. Taxes are the least sexy reason for getting married, but taxes are, after all, representative of and effecting of money. There are something like 1,963 benefits that a pair of spouses have that a pair of non-spouses do not. Or that may be the number of assists Wayne Gretzky had in his career. I’m not great with statistics. Point is, there are so many potential tax benefits for married couples that I wonder why people don’t just get married legally as soon as they can, even before they finish planning their gigantic wedding. (See also ELOPEMENTS) (It’s staggering to think that same-sex couples have been denied these benefits all these years just because their love somehow makes certain people uncomfortable even though the couple’s love has absolutely nothing to do with anybody but them.)

Consult your tax accountant for specifics, but in the meantime, here are some generalities!

You might save a bunch of money if you file jointly! You also might not! If you don’t get married, you definitely won’t. Chances are, your financial situations are different from each other’s. Depending on the dynamic of this see-saw tilt, being married might save you some money. The scenario of a rock star married to a school teacher may bring tax bennies; the scenario of two married rock stars may bring tax burdens. Most couples’ scenarios are probably somewhere between these two scenarios. Consult your tax accountant, tea leaves and/or palm reader.

Prenuptial Agreement Benefits: If the couple makes very different amounts of money, a prenup will protect the poorer one; it’s like socialism for your relationship!

IRA Benefits:If you’re married and you invest in a retirement account, both of you can benefit from this account, no matter which one of you is doing the heavy-contributing!

Legal Decision-Making Benefits:If your spouse is incapacitated by injury, sickness or dementia, you can sit behind the desk, put your feet up, light a cigar and call the shots! Buy! Sell! Take Ned out of the will!

Health Insurance Benefits: If only one of you has a job that provides health care, that’s fine, your spouse can still receive health care even though he can’t find a job! You get to have both health care and the moral upper hand because you provide the health care. The non-health-care-providing spouse has to keep his or her mouth shut during other arguments because when the dust settles, the one who provides the health care is clearly the more valuable and therefore the one who is probably right about whatever old thing you’re arguing (or quarreling) about.

Sick-Leave Benefits:If your spouse is sick or in the hospital, and you need to miss work to be with your spouse, you can do that if you’re married and be compensated for it! This benefit does not do anything for you if you are simply sick of your spouse. In that case, simply leave. If you are stumped for ways to leave, consult Paul Simon’s song “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

Next-of-Kin for Hospital Visits:If your spouse is sick or dying or both, in the hospital, you can visit your spouse in the hospital for long nights spent agonizing over the inevitability of entropy, and you can finish the Jell-O that they probably won’t.

Sue for Wrongful-Death of Spouse:If your spouse dies, wrongfully, you can sue the hospital or whoever wrongfully death-ed your spouse for lots of money, and when you win, the two of you can . . . whoops, sorry. Okay, silver lining: If you win, you can sleep on a bed of cash, alone, or with your next spouse, it’s really up to you at that point. Unless you believe in ghosts. Or even then. What is your ghost spouse gonna do, other than drive you crazy by rattling chains and playing old songs by The Smiths? (How soon is now?)

Inheritance with No Tax Penalty:It’s true, a spouse can inherit the other spouse’s stuff and not pay any taxes on it! One more reason to be kind to each other. So many of these benefits have to do with one spouse dying, which explains a lot of episodes of Dateline.

Social Security Benefits:If one of you dies, the living one can receive the dead one’s social security benefits! If that’s not a great reason to make that vow about till-death-do-us-part, I don’t know what is! If both of you die, you won’t care about this.

Other Reasons to Get Married:Beyond these big motivating factors for people to get married are other, more complicated external societal and internal neurobiological factors.

Outside pressure:Some people get married because their parents want them to.

Some people get married because their parents don’t want them to.

Most often, it’s young people who let their parents pressure them into getting married. “What are you waiting for?” they may ask. “You aren’t getting any younger,” they may cajole in a Jamaican accent. “It’s not like you’ve got a parade of gentleman callers lined up outside your door.” they may remind you in a southern accent. “I may die tomorrow,” they may threaten in an Irish accent while clutching their heart. “Do you want your poor mother to die without seeing her only daughter get married? Is that what you want?”

Many parents want couples to get married because they want to have grandchildren, which is a terrible reason to get married (and a terrible reason to have sex). Nobody should get married just because their parents want them to have children. Don’t get me started.

Psychological Benefits: Having a person who loves you around is great for your emotional health. A spouse can make sure you experience happiness, even if that means they occasionally make you miserable. They only make you miserable so you can appreciate the delightful contrast of feeling happy. It’s the Yin/Yang thing.

Increased serotonin levels: Serotonin is one of the body’s natural anti-depressants. When someone makes you happy, your brain releases serotonin, the happy drug that keeps your glasses rose-colored. Your spouse should make you happier than anyone because he or she has the most access to you.

Less chance of developing depression: According to science, spouses are less likely to develop depression. (Obviously, science has never been married. Hey-ohhhhh!)

While spouses may depress each other, the way to look on the bright side is that they often serve as a valuable check-and-balance, keeping each other up-to-date on world events, correcting each other if necessary, questioning each other to make sure they can see all sides of an issue, serving as honest mirrors so they won’t wear that horrible outdated jacket to the Wilsons’, popping the balloon of their flawed argument privately at home so the spouse won’t be embarrassed when their friends pop it in public, later on, at the holiday party. Being a spouse keeps you mentally involved and active. This is why one spouse often passes away soon after the first spouse does—this also happens because the spouse’s ghost drives them crazy, rattling chains and playing old albums by The Smiths.

Longevity:Being (happily) married can keep you alive longer, according to medical people who research such things. Remaining unhappily married may make you feel as if you have been alive longer than you have.

Whatever motivates you to get married, always remember that it’s your wedding, not their wedding, whoever they may be. Forgetting this fact is how people get hurt, and how ceremonial spaces get draped in yellow police tape.

RECESSIONAL: This is the part at the end of the ceremony where the bridal party and immediate family members leave the ceremonial space in order to have first dibs at cocktail hour drinks.

REGISTRY: Registries are the Amazon wish list of couplehood. They take the guesswork out of giving the couple a gift. Registries are also the product of big assumptions of etiquette. Any couple getting married probably has friends and family members; these friends and family members probably want to buy them a gift, (and, per etiquette, are expected to do so) and instead of the couple receiving a bunch of stuff they don’t need or want, a registry clearly outlines what they want and need (for example this book, to give to friends) for their future life together.

Couples with a conscience can request that in lieu of gifts, or in addition to gifts, guests contribute to a worthy charity like Team Rubicon, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Trevor Project, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League or any other organization towards which John Oliver directs our attention on Last Week Tonight.

REHEARSAL: Rehearsals are a chance for your bridal party to come together and learn what is expected of them during the wedding ceremony. Rehearsals can be as brief as ten to fifteen minutes or can take up an hour, depending on how complicated your ceremony is and how long your bridal party’s attention spans may be. Rehearsals often happen the night before the wedding, because some brides and grooms don’t want to see each other on the wedding day until the ceremony. Also, some couples are worried that a ‘rehearsal dinner’ wouldn’t be the same without the rehearsal part. Rehearsals can also happen on the day of the wedding. Even if your rehearsal is super-casual, have a rehearsal. If your ceremony involves music, choreography, cooperation, timing, effects, gags, anything at all . . . definitely have a rehearsal.

REHEARSAL DINNER: The meal that happens after your rehearsal. Later, there may be “rehearsal drinking,” “rehearsal movie-going,” or “rehearsal karaoke.” All of this happens after rehearsal and depends on what you’ve got going on that night. It’s a great excuse for your family and friends to get together the night before the wedding. You don’t even really have to have a rehearsal before the rehearsal dinner. You can just pretend that you are rehearsing having a good time.

RING BEAR: A Ring Bearer wearing a big bear head. This is only good for English-speaking countries; other countries need to find their own puns.

(Racy alternate use: if you have a large, hairy gay man in your group, he too can be a Ring Bear. More subtle and less adorable, maybe, but given the right crowd, golden.)

RING WARMING: A ring warming is an inclusive ritual that can involve as many or as few guests as the couple wishes. The idea is that the guests send good wishes, prayers, and thoughts into the rings, imbuing the rings with positive energy. This allows everyone to feel as if they have contributed something spiritual to the couple. It’s a lovely ritual that belongs to no singular religion, culture or geographic region. It’s universal, holistic, and completely free.

Options for ring warmings:

•The rings are passed around (usually in a bag, where they are tied together) to every guest, row by row, at the beginning of the ceremony, so every guest gets to actually hold the rings for a moment. Ushers or bridal party members make sure the rings get to everyone and make their way, eventually, back to the best man or whoever is responsible for holding the rings. This is unobtrusive and can happen while the ceremony is underway.

•Another option is to have the rings displayed on a table, past which every guest must walk to get to their seats. The guests can pause at the table, wish good thoughts upon the rings, and then take their seats. Once all that is done, an usher or bridal party member makes sure the rings get to whoever is responsible for holding them. Couples can decorate this table to explain the ring warming, to share facts about the rings, and to thank all the guests for being such an important part of their big day.

•Another way is to select certain family members—parents, perhaps, or just dads, or just moms, to come up at a significant moment to bless the rings either silently or with a vocalized prayer or thoughts.

(Couples can also place the rings in a microwave and cook them on high for a minute or so—once the microwave catches fire and explodes, the rings and everything around them will be quite warm. This is more of a Jason Bourne ring warming.)

(See also RITUALS)

RINGS: Rings are the round things you see on married men and women’s ring fingers (left hand: the finger that is not your pinky finger, your middle finger, your index finger or your thumb finger). (Just to be absolutely clear: not the finger you extend when drinking champagne, not the finger you use to flip off other drivers, not the finger you use to get the waiter’s attention, not the finger you use to hitchhike.)

If you see a wedding ring on someone’s finger, don’t flirt with them! Marriage is hard enough without hotties like yourself distracting people from the serious work of being a good spouse. If they are wearing a wedding band and are flirting with you, their marriage is on the rocks; then it’s up to you whether you’d like to be involved in a romantic tragedy free-fall. Sure: maybe they made a mistake, maybe they’re meant to be with you. Maybe they are a horrible person. In any case, now you know what a ring is.

Rings are both symbolic and practical. The symbolism comes from the shape: they are round, like the letter O and hula hoops. The symbolism of all round things is pretty good: they don’t begin or end anywhere. Rings represent what has been and what will always be. You can’t get that kind of top-grade symbolism from a hexagon, and triangles have other connotations. Rings are symbolic of the ever-regenerating love that exists between the couple. Plus, they fit easily on the finger, unlike hula hoops.

Engagement rings are usually expensive. No man wants to give his wife a cheap ring, even if she told you she would marry you even if you gave her an onion ring. (Still not sure if my wife was kidding.) Wedding rings are less expensive and showy than engagement rings, because by the time the couple buys the wedding rings they have spent their life savings on the other aspects of their wedding.

RISKY IDEAS: Getting married. Getting married outdoors. Getting married to Tom Cruise. Skydiving. Careers in figure skating. Juggling chainsaws. The stock market. Machiavellian dictatorship. Tiramisu.

RITUALS: Rituals in wedding ceremonies are acted-out metaphors. The lighting of Unity Candles, the filling of Unity Sand, sharing wine, ring warming, invoking the four directions (Uptown, Downtown, East Side, West Side), blessing stones, tying the knot (a.k.a. Handfasting), memory boxes, all of these things are rituals in wedding ceremonies.

The basic idea is to represent the metaphorical aspect of two lives intermingling in a visible way that will benefit the wedding ritual industry.

Rituals are great for wedding guests who don’t quite get the big picture of what’s happening or who don’t understand the same language that the officiant is speaking. Rituals are great for photos: candles are always pretty, the mixed sand can make beautiful designs, and two hands joined by a thick rope, scarf, or hockey skate laces invoke the bond of bondage.

(See also BREAKING OF THE GLASS; HANDFASTING; JUMPING THE BROOM; KNOT, TYING THE; MEMORY BOXES; SAND; UNITY CANDLE; UNITY RITUAL)

RSVP: RSVP is an acronym for répondez, s’il vous plait. Translated into English, this means, ‘are you coming or what?’

Not to be fussy, but if they really felt you were close and important to them, they’d use the familiar te instead of vous. (Or as they say, tutoyer.) RSVPs would be RSTPs and more people would R. (If you took twelve years of French for no reason, you’d be opportunistically pretentious too.)

RUNNER: The runner is that long white cloth that runs from the entrance area all the way up the aisle to the ceremonial matrimonial space. It looks great in pictures, but in practice, it can be a disaster. Runners are often made out of the kind of flimsy wafer-thin material that Grasshopper (played by David Carradine) had to walk across in Kung Fu. They’re sometimes so flimsy (HOW . . . FLIMSY . . . ARE THEY?) staff members have to tape them down, which they often can’t do until right before the bridal party enters, which means that just when the event you’ve been planning for a year is about to begin, all anyone notices are staff members down on their hands and knees ripping duct tape off a roll and hastily securing the runner to the carpet, cement, marble, bricks, or even grass, depending on the venue. One of the people bending over will have plumber-butt, and sarcastic family members will reach for a nickel to put in the coin slot. And even if the staff members do tape down the runner, the first one or two people to step on the runner with a high-heeled shoe will likely rip a hole in it anyway. So, by the time the bride and her father enter, the thing is ripped and flopping in the breeze like an albino wacky-wavy-inflatable-arms guy.

Instead of a traditional runner, use a water slide.

RUSTIC: Rustic is more than just a classy way to describe something that could give you tetanus. Rustic is a useful homonymic. Repurposed warehouse spaces are rustic. Barns are rustic. Nick Nolte is rustic.

Rustic is usually a word used to describe casual, barn-ish or warehouse-ish wedding venues. Rustic describes both the space and its vibe. A rustic wedding implies informality, down-home warmth, blue-collar simplicity, the close proximity of horses, vineyards, farmers, organic vegetables, and staffers with visible tattoos. A rustic wedding evokes images of brides in cowboy boots, grooms in suspenders and bow ties, and groomsmen who seem too young to have such thick beards. Rustic venues showcase distressed wood and rebar. Rustic weddings promise barbecue at the reception, mason jars of craft beer, and live bands that specialize in Dixie music.

SAME-SEX WEDDING: I’m so happy for the same-sex couples of the world who can now marry legally. If you are an opposite-sex couple and you are having a difficult time getting psyched about your wedding, think for a minute that millions of people who love each other and are committed to each other with all the purpose anyone could ever ask for were, for eons, prohibited from marrying for no good reason. Look to same-sex couples for inspiration. Same-sex wedding ceremonies are the most moving, meaningful, heartfelt, joyous, and creative ones I’ve ever been honored to officiate. Matching outfits, couples entering together, heartfelt vows, bucking tradition at every turn, because really, what tradition could they have? Same-sex couples appreciate the act of joining together in matrimony, and they reflect this appreciation in every aspect of their ceremony. Pure happiness is beautiful to behold.

SAND: The stuff that gets everywhere when you play on a beach with no pants on. Also a substance incorporated into unity rituals because sand can be different colors and anything that can be different colors can also create art. Note that when the sand representing one half the couple and the sand representing the other half of the couple enter the unity sand vial, they do not mix to form a new color; they compromise around each other until they make something as haphazard, yet beautiful, as a fractal. How’s that for symbolism? (Sound of reader looking up “fractal.”)

(See also RITUALS)

SAVE-THE-DATE: A save-the-date is like an invitation but not an invitation. It is merely a request not to book anything else on a certain day while also conveying the message “We haven’t gotten around to finalizing our invitations but until we do please do not book anything else that Saturday night.” It’s sort of like texting someone that you’re about to send them an email.

SEASONS: Vivaldi wrote music about the four seasons because he loved the hotel. Mother Nature has no idea that we have official days to switch over the seasons. No idea. She doesn’t even know that we’ve decided that there are four of them. Or who Vivaldi is.

Winter:Venue prices are lower in winter, so some couples choose to get married during this, the coldest season. Snow makes for pretty backdrops for pictures. Family and friends have fewer social obligations during winter, so they are more likely to show up. Nobody is going to complain about the heat, and you only have to wait until 4:30 p.m. for sunset. Winter has a lot going for it, especially if you are winter people. Probably not the best time of year for an outdoor wedding. Mother Nature is pretty much swathed in flannel and turtlenecks this time of year.

Spring:Ahh, spring, the lovely season right after winter that often still feels like winter. Early spring can still bring snow. Venue prices sneak up. April showers bring May flowers, and Mayflowers bring pilgrims. Rain loves spring. Rain takes its spring break during spring. Spring, for rain, is like Burning Man, only wet. All of rain’s friends are there! Late May is a great time of year for weddings, maybe the best, with ideal weather in between rain storms and early heat waves.

Summer:The hottest season and the most popular for weddings. School teachers pretty much have to wait for summer in order to get married. (Teachers are our most important citizens.) The sun is high, the days are long, and the humidity is brutal. With cool drinks, gorgeous sunsets, mosquitoes, and sweat trickling down your back, summer has a lot going for it: heat stroke, blinding light, fainting spells . . . who wouldn’t want to get married during the summer, indoors, with air conditioning?

Fall:Fall is the new spring. More and more weddings happen during the fall. Venue prices used to fall in the fall, but when venue managers found out that more people wanted to avoid the crippling heat of summer for their weddings, they kept their prices right in the summer sweet range. Colored leaves, cool breezes, hot cider. Fall may be the perfect time of year to get married unless you are a school teacher with a lot more to worry about. (Teachers are our most important citizens.)

In the world of weddings, there are two distinct seasons: good for weddings (all year, if indoors) and bad for weddings (all year, if outdoors). (Unless you have the luck o’ the Irish—or even better luck. The Irish weren’t that lucky, historically, if you think about it.)

SHIP’S CAPTAIN: Psych! This is actually a Hollywood-inspired myth. A captain of a ship may solemnize a wedding if he or she is also a judge, ordained minister, justice of the peace, or otherwise state-licensed wedding officiant. A captain of a ship may not legally marry a couple solely on the basis of the fact that he or she is the captain of a ship. They can perform ceremonies all they want, as can anyone, but the couple will need someone legitimate to sign their marriage license to make the union legal. (Shipboard wedding ceremonies have become so popular, however, that some cruise lines have taken steps to make sure that their captains may, in fact, solemnize wedding unions. If it is a dream of yours to be married on board a ship by the ship’s captain, contact your preferred cruise line to get the facts.)

SIGNATURE DRINK: Create a signature drink of your own, one that represents your relationship. For example, Sammy and Brenda met in Long Island at an Ice-T concert, so their signature drink is an Old Fashioned.

SILVER: Silver represents the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is a horse named Silver.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE: Tradition has it that by wearing something old (to protect a baby), something new (fresh start), something borrowed (for good luck), and something blue (to protect fidelity), a bride will have good luck on her wedding day. Couples may get creative with interpreting any of these items.

Something old:

•Your grandmother’s wedding dress

•Your grandmother’s earrings

•Your grandmother’s bra

Something new:

•A wedding dress specially tailored to your body

•A pair of shoes designed by your favorite designer

•A Fitbit, so you can see how many calories you burn walking up the aisle

Something borrowed:

•One of your father’s monogrammed handkerchiefs, folded into a secret pocket on your dress, upon which you may dab away happy tears

•One of your mother’s elaborate necklaces, perhaps the one she wore at her own wedding

•One of your little sister’s packets of Listerine strips, because the onions from that morning’s omelet keep repeating on you

Something blue:

•Blue nail polish, lovingly applied by your youngest sister, the flower girl, in a tender, bonding moment

•Blue lace from your Italian grandmother’s home on the isle of Burano, lovingly wrapped about the handle of your bouquet

•Dr. Scholl’s orthopedic inserts, because the heel support really helps your lower back

SPEECHES: At a wedding reception, it is traditional for the father of the bride to do a short speech, and in this day and age, it’s more acceptable for the mother of the bride to do a speech too, because, after all, if a woman can vote, why can’t she do a speech at her daughter’s wedding? This is followed by the best man and maid of honor speeches, in no particular order. Let the best speaker go last.

Father or Mother Speech:Serves to welcome the guests, thank everyone involved, jest at how the relationship with the new son-in-law/daughter-in-law changed over time, welcome him/her to the family, poke fun at their actual son/daughter in a way that will not overly embarrass him/her. End by raising a glass to the happy couple.

Best Man Speech:Serves to further welcome everyone, compliment the bridesmaids, maid of honor, and especially the bride for being beautiful, make light of how she could do much better than the groom she has chosen, then ruthlessly emasculate the groom in front of his friends, family, and new wife. End by raising a glass to the happy couple.

Maid of Honor Speech:Serves to further thank everyone, share touchy-feely anecdote about her relationship with the bride, make everybody cry, compliment the groom, give the groom advice because the MOH knows the bride better than anybody, threaten the groom with explicit details as to what will happen to him if he dares hurt the bride in any way. The best MOH speeches hint that they may have been each other’s “experiment” in college. End by raising a glass to the happy couple.

SYMBOLISM: A symbol is anything that represents an idea. A symbol is a substitute for words. A symbol is worth a thousand words, and a picture is worth a thousand words, so a picture of a symbol would be worth, according to my math, a lot of words, which is why photographers charge so much.

Couples can display symbols of their relationship in lots of ways throughout the wedding day: table settings, signs, decorations, even the text of the ceremony can allude to something that has symbolic meaning for the couple. Symbols can be a part of invitations, ceremony programs, bar napkins, matchbooks, welcome bags for guests in hotel rooms, or logos on the couple’s wedding website. Symbols can be subtle yet pervasive or acknowledged in overt fashion, depending on the couple, on the symbol and on the effect the couple would like to achieve by sharing a symbol that has meaning for them.

For some couples, the restaurant where they met becomes a symbol of their relationship. A song can be a symbol of their love. An out of the way Hyatt Regency can be a symbol for the early days of their courtship. A burner phone can be a symbol of their deep feelings for each other. A lawyer’s business card can be a symbol of the circumstances surrounding their coupling. Symbols can be small things like lockets, cufflinks, or the wall phone they used to speak to each other through the secure window when he visited her in prison. Symbols don’t have to be literal placeholders of a moment, time, or feeling; symbols can be absolutely anything that conjures up, for the couple, something meaningful about their relationship. (Like handcuffs or those little tools that IKEA gives you to help assemble a STORJORM.)

TOASTS: Toasts are like speeches, only much shorter. A toast serves only one purpose: to celebrate a noun or nouns.

Examples:

•“To the bride; may the groom be the last thing she settles for.”

•“To the happy couple; may the lowest thing in their lives be their expectations.”

•“To the happy couple; may the worst thing they do be the last thing the police discover.”

•“To the perfect couple; whoever they may be.”

•“To the thrill of young love and the comfort of Tylenol.”

•“To love; may you find it in the last place you look.”

•“To the Kama Sutra; the best reason to do yoga.”

TUXEDO: A tuxedo is something a person wears to a black-tie event. The traditional wedding cake topper shows a groom in a tuxedo. This is also the preferred attire of James Bond whenever he enters a casino, hotel, luxury train dining car, or really any establishment after dark. During fierce bouts of insomnia, James Bond wears a tuxedo to the all-night laundry place to wash his other tuxedos.

UMBRELLAS: Are you planning on having an outdoor wedding and have no plan B in case of rain? Invest in some complimentary umbrellas, and re-think having an outdoor wedding if it is not too late.

UNITY CANDLE: Some couples want to have a unity ritual in their ceremony, a metaphorical, symbolic gesture that encapsulates their relationship and the beautiful joining of their lives. Unity rituals help people understand the significance of two individuals merging their two lives into one, especially if they don’t understand the language that the celebrant speaks.

Unity candles are one reason why some venues want to receive a certificate of insurance. If a couple is going to come into somebody’s place and light at least three things on fire, (two taper candles, one representing each of you, and one central unity candle, representing both of you combined) they’d better be prepared to pay if they burn down the place.

Some couples choose to do a reverse unity candle. In a reverse unity candle, the couple lights their taper candles and then uses these candles to light the bridal party’s candles, then they light all the guests’ candles until the entire place is one gigantic fire hazard.

(See also RITUALS)

UNITY RITUAL: Unity rituals are acted-out metaphors to show that two people/families are becoming one. They’re the opposite of that magic trick where the magician saws a woman in half.

(See also RITUALS)

USHERS: Whether guests need to be escorted to their seats formally during the ceremony or we just need them to get their asses into the chairs so we can begin the ceremony, ushers can be very useful. Ushers are folks who either pull double-duty as groomsmen or who did not make the bridal party cut but are close enough to the family that they should be involved. Ushers are like valet parking attendants, only for guests, not cars.

VENDORS: Vendors are the exceptional men and women who make the wedding happen with their know-how and skills.

Vendors make and/or break weddings. The officiant is a vendor. The cake maker is a vendor. The ice sculpture of a nymph blowing into a horn is not a vendor, it’s just an ice sculpture. The company that supplied the ice sculpture is a vendor. You are not a vendor. Or are you? I have no idea who you are.

VENUE: The place where you hold your wedding. Ideally, it will have an indoor option because Mother Nature is unpredictable and her nicotine patch JUST . . . ISN’T . . . WORKING.

VENUE HOST: The charismatic person assigned to be the link between what the venue can provide and what the client wants them to provide. Venue hosts are a unique combination of charmer, butler, maître d’, nightclub bodyguard, school principal, school janitor, and mafia soldier. If they can turn water into wine, they will. If the wine spills, they know who can clean it up. They know a guy who can get you a deal on the wine. Be kind to your venue host.

VIDEO: Many people choose to record their wedding ceremony. Indeed, people choose to record their entire wedding day.

Videographers do not just set up a still shot of your wedding ceremony like a parent capturing a grade-school play; they create heavily produced and edited montages, set to music, of the entire day, with all the moments from waking up in some hotel and remembering you are getting married to your morning spin class to having your hair done and makeup applied and dress put on and adjusted and struggling into a tux and figuring out the bow tie and losing the rings and finding the rings and traveling to the venue and forgetting the vow books in the hotel and driving back to the hotel and searching through hotel rooms and finding them and breaking speeding limits back to the venue and getting pulled over by local police and the maid of honor flirting with the cop and getting off with a warning and getting back to the venue and having a first look and the entire photo shoot and rehearsal and the glare of a disapproving future mother-in-law and the pre-ceremony jitters Jaeger shots and the actual ceremony and guests laughing doubled over then crying then leaping to their feet with ovation elation to the private post-ceremony moments and cocktail hour and reception and dinner and dances and cake and children giggling and the party and drinking and twerking and mayhem and selfies and overturned tables and clumsy passes and stolen kisses and clandestine lovemaking in coat-check rooms and the last dance and the declarations of “I love you, man” and forgetting where you parked and standing in a parking lot under a full moon thinking about the meaning of life.

So yeah, videographers charge a lot, but they are basically your Marty Scorsese for a day, so make the payment.

VOWS: Wedding vows are public declarations of intention, your spousal mission statement, and one of the most important parts of any wedding ceremony. Vows are your best shot to convince the person responsible for signing your marriage license that you are serious about what you are doing.

Vows are promises each half of a couple makes for the other. Vows are well-intended ideals expressed in terms of actionable measures. A person needs to take both a macro and micro view of the relationship’s functionality in order to define and write vows.

(See also Wedding Vow Workshop, page 147)

WAGNER’S BRIDAL CHORUS: One of the most recognizable pieces of wedding music throughout the world. When you hear this music, you know you’re either at a wedding or you’re watching a Hallmark movie with a friend who is single and who will still be single tomorrow.

This is the one that goes, “Da, DA, da-daaaaaa . . . da, DA, da-daaaaaaa . . .”

WEDDING: A celebration of two people who have decided to spend the rest of their lives together so they can foster a love that will make the world a better place by the power of its radiance.

An expensive way to shake down your friends for gifts.

A way to gauge how much your parents care about what other families think of them.

A rite of passage to celebrate the transition from two individual souls into one super-duper double power-soul.

An elaborate way to fool people into thinking you’re straight (or gay).

An elaborate way to celebrate the love between two people, no matter their sex, gender identity, religious background, ethnicity, political leanings, or sports affiliation.

Maybe the only way we have as humans to promote love as a diplomatic solution.

WIFE: Your fiancée becomes your wife the moment you are married, which is the moment some clerk at City Hall registers your marriage a week or two after the wedding ceremony with the thud-thwack of an official stamp. (Or a whirrrr of some kind of scanning machine.)

A wife is a wonderful human being who supports you while you write a book about wedding ceremonies.

A wife holds the power in the relationship, even though she may strategically allow her husband to believe he has the power. As Toula’s mother tells her in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, regarding the man being the head of the family: “Let me tell you something, Toula. The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants.”

A wife is a relentless husband-improver. Someone should pitch a husband-improvement show to the Oxygen Network (HIMprovement! ™©). Instead of improving a house, a wife improves her husband. We follow a couple over the course of several months, from the end of their honeymoon all the way to the day the husband, now totally improved, announces he wants a divorce.

XX: Symbol for the female chromosome and the beer Dos Equis.

XY: Symbol for the male chromosome, and sometimes the answer to a suspicious question:

“Who was that woman speaking to you at the bar, honey?”

“My X. Y?”

XXX: A Vin Diesel movie—the one where he wore a V-neck T-shirt.

YO-YO MA: One of the world’s finest cellists and certainly the cellist with the most fun name to say out loud. His recording of “Appalachia Waltz” (composed by Edgar Meyer, also performed with Mark O’Connor) is an achingly beautiful piece of music for a bridal entrance or any other moment in your life.

ZIKA: A disease you can get from attending an outdoor wedding next to a lake in Florida.

“Did they give away any swag at the wedding?”

“No, but I caught the Zika virus from a mosquito that bit me during the ceremony and now I’m quarantined in a motel next to a mini-golf course in Sarasota.”

“Was there cake?”