O Canada

(May 23, 2006)

Hub and Kelly are getting married in just a few weeks! It's going to be a small outdoor wedding near their place.

"How are the wedding plans?" I asked Hub a few weeks ago. "Have they spiraled wildly out of control due to various well-intentioned yet insane parental influence? Have the words 'ice' and 'sculpture' been paired together?" In 1993, Hub and I had started to make wedding plans. We figured why not, we were responsible adults and we'd known each other since we were fourteen and had been a devoted couple for two years by then. He even gave me the best ring I've ever seen. But then came 1994. The Year of the Wedding.

The definition of "Year of the Wedding" is twofold. Firstly, my crazy mother freaked out and began an ascent into la la land, out of which she pulled a non-negotiable roadmap of how our wedding would be. I know there were to be ice sculptures. One highlight included something about a white horse. Was I to ride in on the horse, or would it be pulling me in a carriage? I don't remember, it's all kind of hazy now. Secondly, it just so happened that, at our age, a good number of our friends got married that year. There were four weddings. Hub was in one, I was in one, the other two we were just guests. At the end of the last one of the Year, which was a freezing sleeting December night, as he was helping me hobble (I don't wear heels well) across the parking lot to our car, I looked up and said, "We are never doing this to our friends." We'd had enough bridal registries, gravy boats, long drives, gowns, tuxes, Macaranas, Electric Slides and chicken cordon bleu to last a lifetime.

In our heads we were committed, but without the bother and expense of actually having to do a wedding. Okay, it was probably all me -- I just don't WANT to get married. Just as well because over the next ten years our relationship morphed back into what it was at the beginning in high school: a totally platonic friendship. I moved out in 2002 and got my own place nearby. Now of course I live with Joey and Hub feels like a brother to me, and he met Kelly, who couldn't be more perfect for him.

So the whole wedding thing looks like it's going much better for Hub this time. "We refuse to listen to our parents," he said. "Though the justice of the peace would cheezify the ceremony if given his way. Dude wanted every stupid celtic ceremony on the planet. Hand fasting, oathing stone, pulling a sword from a stone??"

"Handfasting!" I said, "That always sounded romantic in a Wiccan kind of way."

"You know, yes, it DID. People ruined it. The whole pagan ritual has been driven to triteness by the Trekkies of this world. I think if we keep it simple and uncomplicated, the beauty of those elements can be retained. But it's so easy to over-cheese. It seems like it can very easily turn into a sort of King Arthur play."

"Wouldst thou taketh thy lovely bride in hand and kisseth her on yon rosy lips?"

"Thank you, my point exactly. At some point it gets theatrical and loses all meaning. Showeth me to thine bathroom before I whippith out mine penis and pisseth on thy leg. When i have to start recruiting people to put on tights and be 'merry men,' this wedding has jumped the shark."

I envisioned his brothers in tights. Oh man. "You would all slip imperceptibly into Python-esque diatribe. "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"

"HA HA!"

"The whole thing would fall apart with everyone saying 'NEE!' to each other."

I'm not planning on going to Canada for the wedding though. It's just a hard trek without a car, and there is so much going on right now. Oddly enough? Every day there has been a new Canada-related reminder. First it was someone on TV singing "O Canada," then it was an online pop-up banner about travel to Canada, then last night during the Sox game a commercial for special flights on Air Canada. Okay okay, I get it! Canada isn't that far, fine!

If I go I'm not participating in any simulated Grail hunt though.