Friday, July 13, 2007

Wedded Blitz

I’ve been invited to a wedding this weekend. It’s a wedding for a friend/co-worker of mine. You can sort of tell the station in life you are by the type of wedding you attend. Right now, I’m young enough that I’m still being invited to people’s first weddings. I’ll know that the mid-life crisis is just around the corner when I get invited to someone’s second wedding – that’s for sure. And I’ll know that I’m getting really old when I start getting invited to the wedding of a friend’s kid.

If we’re lucky, places like Target will have kiosks stationed right next to the wedding registry where you can select your retirement community and even pick out your casket and burial site. (With cross marketing like that, Walmart may already have something like this!) Heck, if they attached one of those blood-pressure cuffs to the side of the kiosk, that might save even more time. Some of us might get a message popping up on the screen after the blood-pressure test saying, “Please skip Steps 3 & 4 (retirement options) and go straight to funeral preparations.” I could see the AARP backing something like that. But I digress.

After I received the invitation to this weekend’s wedding, I began thinking about the gift I was going to need to purchase for the couple. I’ve never met the bride to be – I’m sure she’s lovely – so I was truly on the horns of a dilemma in the gift department. You know, do I get them something simply based on my friend’s personality? But then I thought, perhaps a dozen hot dogs and a handful of beers at Angel Stadium might not quite send the right message. Or, do I try and guess at the personality of the woman he’s marrying and shop in that vein? That’s a Pandora’s box right there, too, and I don’t think I need to go into detail on the myriad reasons. Do I?

But wait, there’s the Wedding Registry! It’s a helpful list of a gajillion things, hand picked by the bride and groom (read: by the bride), that lets you know what items they will need to start a home and begin their new life together. The rub here, though, is that my friend is in his 40s, and both he and his fiancée own their own homes – and I’m fairly certain that neither’s home is necessarily lacking in the house wares and furniture departments. Oddly enough, when I went online to check out the several registries, house wares and furniture were exactly what they had on their lists. (I did notice that my friend had chosen some beer mugs from Crate & Barrel . . . but the @#$% quantities had already been purchased!) So, rather than trying to decide between the Casablanca Round Placemat and the Savoy Mocha Placemat (which, incidentally, is rectangular for all of those who are scoring at home) or between the Cookie Dough Scoop and the “Y” Peeler (yes, the letter Y was in quotations, and come to think of it, I’ve never had occasion to peel the letter Y or any other vowels for that matter), I decided to get them a crock pot. You laugh now (and they may think I’m a moron when they open the gift), but they’ll thank me when they’re looking to make a great chili to go with the hot dogs and beer. I’ll be their hero – I’m a patient man and can wait for the accolades from them.

I am curious to see what other gifts they’ll be receiving. You know, to see if other guests are as thoughtful as I am or if they’re lazy enough to get the couple something on their registry. More than that, I’m curious to see how you peel the letter Y.

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