that I am giving to you as a wedding gift:

“Winston Churchill sent a complete set of his books.” (Gifts Queen Elizabeth received on her wedding. C’mon Winston, what a cheap and self-promotional freebie. Couldn’t you have sprung for a fish fork or something?)

“my family is jewish and FI is italian. for the most part things are fine, but to his family the thing they care most about is having a big antipasti display (meat and cheeses and whatnot) at the reception. meanwhile, my parents keep kosher and are adamant about not having any pork at the wedding, and aren’t really comfortable even with the mixing of meat and dairy. it’s so stupid and yet is such a huge headache for me.”

—post about mixing cultures 

This is dying out for a rom-com treatment, set in New York of course.

Mrs. Moz

Now that I am married, should this blog be Funny Housewife Things? P.S. This post on Mrs. Moz made me learn how to do hospital corners.

“Choose wisely, I was at a weding where the bride and her dad danced to ‘Nights in White Satin’ by the moody blues, and it was really creepy.”

—from an Offbeat Bride post about Father-Daughter songs.

This agnostic Indiebride received a book entitled When Sinners Say I Do. Stumped about what to write for a thank-you note, she started a thread soliciting advice. While someone else suggest that she self-publish a book entitled When Douchebags Give Wedding Gifts  and give it to the giver, I had to laugh out loud at another poster who shared this anecdote:

“My Grandma, for example, who sent me a pamphlet with flames on the cover titled ‘HELL…Suppose it’s True After All’ after I told her I read and enjoyed a book about Buddhism.”

By the way, this reminds me of a funny Postcard from Yo Momma, where a poster’s mother, who was in the middle of a divorce received a Christian DVD about saving her marriage. The gift giver, a great-aunt sent the mother the DVD, or as the mom says:

“She said “Even though I am a Christian, I’m not trying to convert you. I accept that you are not a Christian, but I hope you’ll find this helpful.”

I’m gonna write her back- “Even though I am a sinner, I’m not trying to convert you. I accept that you’re not a sinner, but I hope you’ll find this helpful.”

The note will be attached to a vibrator.”

This one requires some inside baseball background to understand what happened.

Characters:

Sally Quinn: Washington D.C. social doyenne, and wife of Ben Bradlee

Ben Bradlee: Former and legendary editor of The Washington Post, who oversaw the Watergate coverage.

Okay, so Sally Quinn, many years ago, wrote a book called The Party (which I have actually read) about how to entertain properly. She has since been writing a regular column in WaPo entitled “The Party,” but recently, she decided to turn a prime real-estate column into a crazy local family newsletter rant. Or in the words of The Awl’s Choire Sicha: “A WaPo Tumbr.”

Basically, she scheduled her son’s wedding on the same day as her husband’s granddaughter’s wedding. Yikes! Instead of rescheduling, she ended up writing a really defensive and filled with family gossip column about it. A commenter on Gawker said that they clicked on it hoping to find “A juciy Miss Manners column” but ended up on Quinn’s column instead. Anyway, Quinn ended up getting demoted (her column will now only run online) over the whole episode, probably for including random family gossip like:

- “Over Christmas, Greta’s mother and I came to an understanding that, because of existing tensions, it would be best for all if none of us attended Greta’s wedding.” Translation: My husband’s ex-wife and I got into a huge fight and we were disinvited.

-The son in question, one Quinn Bradlee, wrote a memoir about growing up with learning disabilities, which was excerpted in the London Times. To put it mildly, Sally Quinn is a totally insane overprotective mother. Quinn writes about losing his virginity on a Carribbean island while on vacation with his parents. This is how his mother reacts:

“When she found out I’d lost my virginity at a “house of ill repute”, she went nuts. She started to go on and on about how many people on the island had AIDS….

My mother started to call every doctor she knew to tell them what had happened….

She took us to the front desk of the hotel where she gave them a talking-to….

The manager could see my mom was panicking and she was very cooperative – even when my mother asked her to find the girls we’d been with, which took about half an hour…They got in the car and Silky took us all to a clinic for an HIV test. Talk about awkward. My mom and dad sat in the front with Silky and we sat in back with the girls.”

Anyway, incidentally, the whole reason why the wedding became a conflict was because Quinn impregnated his fiancee and the family decided to move up the wedding (at The National Cathedral, natch), thus causing all the madness. So apparently, Quinn Bradlee has learned nothing—his mother is still way too involved in his sex life.

-One more funny note: Quinn and his fiancee were introduced to each other by infamous New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. I feel that Quinn Bradlee is just pushed around by a bunch of intense D.C. opinionated ladies.

UPDATE: Oh dear, Quinn and his parents went on Charlie Rose to talk about the whole brothel incident! [Click through to the 45:30 point in the video.] It’s kind of a fascinating look into the um, intense, and sort of strange family dynamics of this WASP-y family—there’s a really weird unspoken classist and sexist anxiety about the prostitute, as well as a glimpse into their family relationships.

This one might only be funny if you read wedding boards, but comedienne Guilia Rozzi acts out threads from different wedding boards. Here’s one about Save the Dates (aka STDs):

I found an archived cover story from 1980 issue of New York magazine about how to get into the New York Times wedding (or “society”) section. For New Yorkers, this is probably one of the most popular sections of the Sunday Times. Anyway, 1980 was thirty years ago, but the amount of hilariously dated commentary in this article is unbelievable.

The Times (even today) always uses courtesy titles in its articles (hence the famous story that they wrote an article about Meat Loaf as “Mr. Loaf.”) But since they didn’t introduce “Ms.” until 1986 (and only after great debate), the Times would use “Miss” for all brides who were entering their first marriage. (Even today, the Times is merciless in listing former marriages “which ended in divorce” in the announcements.)

So, when a friend of John Oakes, then a big-time editor, and even more importantly, a Sulzberger by birth, and thus, an owner of the Times, requested that his previously married friend be given the honorific “Miss,” the then society editor yelled, “This girl is not a virgin, and I’m not going to make her one!”

“We live in a town with a rather infamous maximum security prison. On the prison grounds near the warden’s house there is a hall/facility that you can rent out. FMIL is insistent on having our reception there. IT’S ON PRISON GROUNDS. I have already reiterated the fact that I am NOT comfortable with our reception there. On top of that, 85% of our guest list is coming for at least 45 min away and is planning on staying in a hotel. In this town, there is only one motel where the inmates families come for visiting weekend - so they would be there, too. Additionally, the nearest hotels are 15 minutes away and we don’t have public transportation. She doesn’t see the problem in this. Eek.”

—thread on Weddingbee.com from a poster whose future mother-in-law wants to hold a wedding at a infamous prison.

I read this article about The Dexter Lake House Band, a New York wedding band a few weeks ago when it was in Sunday New York Times Style Section and pretty much every part of it made me laugh. If I had an extra $8,000 lying around I would totally hire them.

Here’s a video of them playing Journey:

My favorite quotes include:

- “Special requests are only one element that goes into the Level of Brutality, or L.O.B., a highly sensitive index the band developed to assess each wedding. “An L.O.B. of eight is pretty brutal,” Mr. Stinchcomb says. “An L.O.B. of 10 is, like, somebody dies.”

Many factors can swing the L.O.B. Food is high on the list. Ideally, the band eats what the guests eat. In high-L.O.B. situations, they get somewhat less. “Wraps are a brutal food,” Mr. Stinchcomb says.”

- “Poor old Johnny Ray,” Mr. Ruedeman belts. “Sounded sad upon the radio/ He moved a million hearts in mono.”

There’s some stirring in the back of the room but not enough. It seems as if the band has fired the bullet too soon. Then comes the bridge:

“Come on, Eileen taloo-rye-aye”

All of a sudden there are people streaming down the aisles, pushing tables aside, running for the dance floor. The entire crowd is pogo-sticking up and down as the beat builds toward the chorus.

“I said too-ra-loo-ra-too-ra-loo-rye-AYE.”

- “Mr. Rodriguez is effortlessly wailing away on lead. Mr. Olsen is in full, eyes-rolling-back drummer-ecstasy mode while the women kick their shoes into a pile, stamp their feet and clutch each other like little girls reunited at summer camp.”

[Incidentally, this article was totally written by a man, since there are MANY references to the intensity of female wedding guests, but having attended many social events where people play Journey and similar wedding songs, I think the descriptions are often—even if they make me cringe—pretty spot on.]