A brief debrief

The wedding was all right, as it happened. The reception could have gone smoother from my point of view, but as I kept telling myself, the reception wasn't my party. We never asked for it, we didn't pay for it, so there's no complaining. So when a stranger in a kilt with a fake Scots accent and a sporran made from a dead badger (I'm not exaggerating...he had a lap full of badger head) played "Taps" on his bagpipes and chained a bowling ball to my foot in an offensive yet allegedly charming and spontaneous communal theater moment, I played along. When the DJ with the silver cowboy hat refused to play any of the music I had painstakingly compiled for the dance, I took the opportunity to chat with the few people at the reception I knew. When M's mom's line-dancing club showed up to dance to what the DJ was playing instead, I went outside. And when the reception was nothing but the line dancers, I made a short announcement that the bride and groom were leaving. No one seemed to notice by that point, which, given the bowling ball thing, was probably okay. I have a certain empathy now with King James I's grumpiness at his accession ceremony. It ain't your show, but you have no option but to play along. It's like the actor's nightmare.

We did, however, manage to subvert the heteronormative cliches of the event by getting married on a stage, with a hastily-draped set of Biloxi Blues and by having attendants of the wrong gender. My brother-in-law made an excellent maid of honor.

I think despite not saying goodbye when they left the reception, my parents had a pretty good time. Mom danced as much as her recent heart attack would allow her, and she smiled a lot. They weren't particularly effusive at any point, and the presence of my nephew kind of hampered the participation of my family in the proceedings. Still, I'm trying to put a good face on the occasional laconic grimacing of my parents: it was the long drive; it was being overwhelmed by the numbers of M's family; it was the grandson; it's their age...anything but what I suspect is the truth, that according to the sermon on the mount, their son's second marriage counts as adultery and my hellboundness is now beyond question. Good thing they like M and that their politeness is the only thing as strong as their religion.