The Wedding

We want to be married. But neither of us wants to plan the wedding. I as a man don’t want to enter the faggy world of selecting orchids and canapes. I don’t want to deal with a wedding planner, some horsefaced bitch whose job is to suck money out of me. But I want to say “wife.” Fiancee‘s such a pussy word. You can’t picture it not italicized. I want her to say husband and I want to say wife. I want to be her husband and I want her to be my wife. I want her to take my money.

She’s my wife in all but name. I want it to be official. She does too. But my woman’s kind of a man and I’m kind of a woman. She has real projects where her energy goes. I don’t have the drive to say bitch here’s what we’re doing.

I want the dog to be the ring bearer. I want the priest to say something sacred and official and the back doors of the church open and the dog is released. Having not seen us all day. She sprints toward us maniacally. Something funny will happen. Obviously the dog will get distracted. Run into the pews to jump on my stepdad or something. A moment everyone will remember. I produce a piece of chicken from my pocket and she runs up. The ring in a box on her collar. I want the flowers to be the flowers from the lone pink blooming tree in the sacred forest in Japan. On Mount Fuji where I proposed. That’s it.

We have some vision of the wedding. Neither of us wants to take on a third job planning it and allocating money and time. Sending out save the dates and coordinating when my family can come from Massachusetts and all that shit. Figuring out parking. Six months- if we start today we have to plan six months out. Find the venue, the officiant, etc. etc. I’m gonna convert to Catholicism by the way. She says hey I want to raise our kids Catholic. I say fuck it, sure. A thought bubble forming. Inside it my kids learning Latin without paying $68k a year for actual prep school. Relatively few gang banging cave creatures beating them senseless in the halls. Catholics encompass some of the violent races- Mexicans, Irish- but not the worst ones, they have some time off human sacrifice. I’ll take it. I’m gonna convert to Catholicism. And not in a Peter Thiel way where it’s a Frankist cover story. I’m gonna do the rituals and all that bullshit. I’m reading the Bible cover to cover. A great book. I’m on Judges. God commands the Jews to go kill everyone around them, over and over. These people need Jesus.

We could elope. But I have this feeling. My poor mother. Denied every milestone of normal life. Her only son.

Our friends had a destination wedding. They spent a million dollars to fly everyone to Scotland. Nothing like that. If I get my brothers and their wives and kids out here we have to entertain everybody- they can go to Disneyland. But then if I’m getting them out of the Northeast, we can do it in the winter. Do it over Christmas. Get them out of the snow to the beach in December with the dolphins and the flowers blooming.