On June 16^th of 2007, an unassuming Oregonian family known as the LaPointes witnessed an event they never thought possible. After twenty-five years of child-rearing involving five children, one of the LaPointe children finally got married, and it’s not the one everyone expected. In fact, it wasn’t even the runner-up. I’m sure everyone thought the youngest daughter named Katy would get married before this dark horse, and she has Downs Syndrome.

Regardless of the odds, on June 16^th, 2007, David LaPointe, the oldest of the LaPointe children and older brother to my fiancée, Christy, got married to Erin Zastrow. David met Erin on the internet, which I just as well assumed meant that he’d never be seen again after going to meet her, and would be found fifteen years later as nothing but a set of wind chimes made from his ribs. I wagered good money on it.

So you can imagine my embarrassment when David brought back Erin, a Lutheran school teacher hailing from Wisconsin who was now teaching in nearby Monroe, Michigan. She presented herself as a sarcastic yet warm person who somehow fell in love with a young dork of a kid from a small town in Ohio. I doubt David ever suspected that she would be the most beautiful woman in the world, at least to him. I would argue this point, because I believe with strong evidence this title goes to his sister. It’s probably just as well he holds his current beliefs, as I don’t think the law would smile on him for trying to marry his sister. I would have to kill him anyway.

The proposal came as somewhat of a shock, since they had been dating for far less time than Christy and I have, though it seems these days marriage can result after a single involved phone conversation. I think everyone had their bets hedged on Christy and I getting married first, since we had been dating for over five years at that point and had been talking about it. Then one day, without warning, David was getting married.

The situation reminded me of C and an annoying, socially and sanity inept friend of his who read a story he wrote for class and ended up stealing the idea and reading it in front of class as her own work. My reaction was pretty much like C’s: “You stole my idea!” I ended up proposing to Christy more than two months before the wedding because I felt it was about time, but I can’t shake the feeling that everyone will think I’m copying off of David, when it fact he was copying off me before I could turn my idea in. To be honest, my idea might have been indirectly inspired by other couples.

In any case, the young man who will one day be my future brother in law and will no doubt be hit up for money by his kid brother-in-law is now married, and I’m very happy for him. After telling Christy and I about the engagement, he asked both of us to be in the wedding. I’m certain he just asked me because he would feel guilty about leaving me out. Plus, I would kill the groomsman who was hanging on my girl.

Being the closest one in the wedding party to being a world-famous, best-selling author, I briefly felt obligated to say some words at the reception, but later decided against it. For one, that is the best man’s job, and I would feel bad for taking this privilege away from him. This is not to mention that it would have required a micron of effort, which is more than my affections for David would allow.

My main reason was I didn’t really know him that well. Although I’ve been coming to his house for the last six years to take his sister away for acts unknown, I haven’t had many heartfelt chats with him. This is probably because we have little in common, since he’s into sports and I’m into more nerd-like affairs. While David would rather be watching other people play sports on TV, I’d rather be thumping goblins on my Playstation or watching foreign cartoons.

Don’t think that I didn’t end up saying a few words anyway.

Because of this, I really wasn’t all that involved in the wedding planning. Granted, most of this was done by Erin and her mother. This should come as no surprise, since the wedding is almost always planned exclusively by the bride and her mother. If the groom tries to interfere on the grounds (get this for a lame excuse) that it’s his wedding too, the bride will strangle him to death with decorative ribbons. And you wouldn’t believe how little this actually affects the wedding plans.

I did, however, have to rent the tuxedo. If you aren’t familiar with this, the tuxedo rental business is big with wedding parties and high school students who think they’re going to score if they dress like a bargain-bin male stripper for prom. It’s also the seediest business in this country, right next to drug dealers, chop shops, and the Salvation Army Thrift Stores. Yet it works, because people are really stupid.

Think about this: if you offered to let someone wear your used clothes that have been God-knows-where and absorbed God-doesn’t-even-know-what, they would probably call the police. But people are happy to drop around a hundred bucks for a getup that looks like someone threw together several unfortunate fashions and suggest you wear them all at the same time. I’m not sure who decided that tuxedos are one of the most formal outfits men can wear, but it’s clear they had one too many martinis.

I went for my fitting with David’s father and brothers, where I got the privilege of traveling to my favorite part of Toledo, getting groped for a while as they took my “measurements,” then travelling back to Oregon without doing anything else (we did stop at Geno’s Pizza, so it wasn’t all bad). The tuxedo place, which was as small as a gas station bathroom and I suspect didn’t contain any actual tuxedos that weren’t already spoken for, sent out our measurements in to their tuxedo lab, where they randomly picked one off a rack and put our name on it, then sent it on.

After I got mine, I tried it on and couldn’t help feeling even more ripped off than I already did. I’m still not sure who picked out the tuxedo, but I suspect David, because he’s a man involved in wedding planning, so of course it was disastrous. The tux looked like the black suit that I already own, with insanely shiny black shoes that could signal aircraft, a black dress shirt and a stupid black tie that was a mutant combination between a normal tie and a clip-on, and might actually belong to some guy named Will, because his name was written on it in white, making it the only white part of the entire outfit. So we’re walking around in all black, which I normally wouldn’t mind, but considering how the color doesn’t play well off the contours, we probably could have produced the same effect by cutting a hole in the middle of a black bed sheet and sticking our heads through.

This shouldn’t have surprised me, since David decided to wait until five days before the wedding to ask me if I could get someone to tape it. I had asked him if he needed anyone months in advance. I even lined up a photographer for him, but since that photographer was C, maybe it was for the best that he rejected the idea (I’m kidding, of course. I would have him do my wedding if he wasn’t slated to be in it). But he said they had everything lined up, so I should have expected him to call me up asking for a videographer.

Of course I couldn’t get anyone to do it, so it was up to me, even though I was in the wedding. But I was sure no one would mind me darting in and out of line so I could adjust the camera. To be safe, I opted for a boring static shot, making a very easy edit, and the video was part of their wedding present (the other part was a pair of chili pepper-shaped dishes, a theme they actually requested), making this the easiest copout ever.

My next involvement in the wedding came the day before at the rehearsal. While it may not seem like the act of walking down the aisle would require practice, so long as you remember not to fall on the flower girl or scratch yourself during the vows, there’s actually more to it than you’d think. The wedding party was subjected to rigorous training that covered where to go, when to go there, and how long to stay. I spent most of the time fighting off flashbacks of marching band practices.

I was actually the best dressed there, but not for any serious reasons. I showed up in the bluest suit I could find, complete with blue and black handkerchief in the front pocket, and a black shirt underneath. I actually looked better than I originally thought, though one day I vow to bring back that eighties charm and have a pink shirt under there. Maybe I won’t wear socks either.

Anyway, the rehearsal went well, and it was off to a local Italian restaurant for an enjoyable dinner. It was at this point that David and Erin handed out gifts to the wedding party, the groomsmen receiving forty dollar gift cards to Best Buy. It made me feel a little bad about the cheap wedding gift I was sending my way (granted I would have charged any other couple around five-hundred dollars or more to record the wedding and make a DVD), but then I remembered the crappy tuxedo and the bill, making me feel a little better. Still, the bar was set high, and I turned to Christy and said “Great, now we’ll have to elope.”

The next day, we arrived two hours before the Big Moment in order to get ready and stew in David’s sea of nerves. Actually, he seemed to be doing pretty well, which is more than I could say for my confidence in how I assembled my tux. I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect, which meant that it wasn’t. I’m convinced I was the only one that ended up with a defective shirt, which allowed a tiny spec of white undershirt to poke through the top. Considering the style we were going for, this would be like me wearing a white bed sheet instead.

Other than fretting over my undershirt, I admired the church basement we were stationed in and wondered how cool it would be if I had a basement rec room like it. A couple is about to tie the knot of holy matrimony, and I’m thinking about interior decorating. Still, since I was thinking about where the home theater room would be and how I could have a pool table, foos ball table, and ping pong table down in a basement like this with more than enough room to have a foam dart gun arena, being a guy, I think these thoughts are excusable. I’ll probably be having the same thoughts when I get married.

My other thoughts were on the voyeur photographer. For some reason, the wedding photographer, who had an air of a pervert anyway, insisted on taking pictures of the groomsmen while we were getting dressed. It wasn’t really that bad, since we all had our pants on at the time. Save for David, who hid away in one of the rooms to change, and was actually followed in there by the photographer, who was snapping pictures of him, blue briefs and all, while David stared back like a deer staring down a semi.

I was later told that the guy had some shots of the bridesmaids changing, and was following them around at the hair salon in the morning. Supposedly, Erin wanted to scrapbook the entire wedding day, so the photographer had to take pictures of just about everything. I’m still pretty skeptical, and won’t be at all surprised if I find myself on groomsmengonewild.com.

We were ushered into the chapel for some quick pictures before the ceremony. I thought this was a nice gesture, since getting the pictures out of the way would help ensure that the guests got to eat the same year. I’ve never been too fond of being told to show up at the reception hall and then have to wait a week for the wedding party to show up because they had to take pictures of every possible combination of people, including some of people who passed by the church while the ceremony was going on. Don’t think we got all of the pictures out of the way, because of course we couldn’t get any of the bride and groom together beforehand, because the groom isn’t allowed to look at the bride before the wedding, or he’ll turn to stone.

Well, I don’t actually know what happens if the groom catches a glimpse of his soon-to-be before the ceremony, but it must be bad, because a lot of couples are extremely religious about this. I never understood it myself. In my case, I’ll have known Christy for over ten years by the time we get married, so it’s not like I’m going to be all that surprised when she comes down the aisle, unless she comes to her senses and runs off. It’s almost as if everyone expects the bride to rip off her human mask, revealing a grotesque visage like that from the Aliens movies, and she will proceed to eat the groom’s head after the I Dos.

In my experience, though, women generally apply millions of years of beauty tips all over themselves for their big day and tend to look way better than they do in real life, so maybe they’re worried the groom will start humping the bride right there in the chapel. The only thing worse is if he would think she was someone else…

After the pictures, it was time for the ceremony. With about half an hour of intense ceremony training under my belt, I felt ready to take on the challenge. The groomsmen filed in, then the maids of honor, and we all got to our points, and then it was time for the bride to come proudly striding in, showing the world she was ready to make the commitment to that special somebody. This is not to mention that she was also sending the message to all of her single friends “Ha! I’m married and you’re not! Neener, neener, neener!”

Well, not on purpose, and as her father gave her arm to David, it was easy to tell they were both very happy. The ceremony began, and it didn’t take long for the gravity to press down on me, and as the feelings of love and commitment soared through the church, I glanced over at Christy with one overpowering thought in my head: “Are your feet killing you too?”

You wouldn’t think it unless you’ve actually had to literally stand still for a half hour, but it really gets to you after a while. We were warned during rehearsal not to lock our knees or we risk passing out, which is hard to believe unless you’ve actually seen it happen. It didn’t help that the tuxedo rental company decided to play a prank on us and give us shoes that multiplied the pain. So there I am, in front of hundreds of wedding guests, trying subtly to shift my weight around and keep my knees bent, probably looking like I was trying to lift a piano, my feet ablaze and sweet pouring down my face, even though I was fine walking around in the tux the entire day. During all of this, I’m thinking any variety of things, mostly “Don’t pass out!”, “Don’t move a muscle!”, and, most often, “Is this stupid ceremony over yet?!”

I glanced up at the other groomsmen, who to me seemed to be fairing better. I also looked over at the bridesmaids, who seemed to be just fine, but women are born with wedding genes built in, so they can handle this sort of for a solid month straight with no problems. Fortunately for my personal dignity, most of the other groomsmen confessed they had about as bad of time as I did, so I guess it just wasn’t all that obvious. The experience did give me some good ideas for my wedding though, mostly involving lawn chairs.

In case you’re waiting in suspense, neither David nor Erin wised up and ran out the door, and the ceremony went smoothly, without future brother-in-laws collapsing to the floor. As the ceremony ended and the crowd dispersed, we resumed pictures, which I’m glad to report only took three days. After that, it was off to the reception hall for a well-deserved dinner.

I have to admit Erin and her mother sure knew how to put together a party. The hall was top-notch and decorated better than Martha Steward’s prison cell; the seating name tags were actually bars of soap with people’s names in it. In addition to standard wedding food fair (minus the promised fettuccini alfredo, a glaring omission Christy and I will hold against Erin for the rest of her natural life) and endless supplies of alcohol for the happy couple to reconcile their fear, also on hand was a chocolate fountain and (I’m not making this up) a “nacho bar” with working cheese dispenser, a wedding innovation that so-called “wedding experts” never mention. The music was a combination of a semi-live DJ with a live band herded in from Columbus at the end of the night that was actually pretty good.

It would have been a great time if it weren’t for two factors. One, the place was run by the Russian mob. Really. Well, maybe not Russian, or even anything related to organized crime, but the bartender definitely gave me the creeps every time I would go up and ask for a Coke, as if one wrong move would result in a vodka bottle in a very uncomfortable place.

The other problem was Christy was in the middle of a bad cold, and had to spend some time resting in the family van. She recovered enough to actually have fun for a little while, which was good, considering the entire reason I was there was so she wouldn’t have fun with some other dude.

Overall, the reception was really fun, and I earned some brownie points with Christy’s mother by taking Katy, who had been sitting patiently in her chair the entire night, out on the dance floor, which spurred her to stay out there until sometime early the next morning. As the party died down, the best man and the maid of honor decided it was time to give their speeches. Yeah, they probably should’ve gotten that out of the way at the beginning of the reception, but why not save the best for last?

Too bad it wasn’t the best, because the best’s man Big Speech consisted of some generic rambles about David and Erin having a happy life together that no one cares about, while the maid of honor spewed a few jokes that didn’t make any sense to anyone. Fortunately, a family friend, who it would seem stole the index card with the best man’s speech written on it, did a typical “the groom is a pig” list involving him in his underwear and drooling, so the affair was salvageable. David’s little brother also did a well-wishing blather that degenerated into a low mumble, so I stepped in and gave an impromptu speech involving the bit about the psycho killer and incest from early in this article. It wasn’t my best work, but then again, I’m not very good at thinking this stuff up on the fly, and I got a few laughs.

I spent the remainder of the evening gathering the decorative tea candle holders for no other reason than we were told we could. After securing my bounty, I tore myself out of the monkey suit and stuffed it into Christy’s family’s van to be returned, and good riddance. We excused ourselves and started our journey back home, reflecting on the hustle and the bustle of the experience and all of the excitement it involved. Christy and I are definitely eloping.

So to Erin and David, I say congratulations and I hope you have a great life together... Though come to think of it, I haven’t seen David since the wedding. Maybe I was onto something with that serial killer stuff after all…

I’m just kidding. Best of luck, you two! I'll be begging for money shortly...