Normally I'd spend my Thursday nights at my house surrounded by the Twiga Herd (twiga means giraffe for all you readers who aren't fluent in Swahili), watching movies or some fun tv show. Luckily, Mandy's with me so we're still having a good time even if our friends are back home.
One Thursday a while back we decided to watch Rachel Getting Married. Here's how it went:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Last night the Twiga Herd watched
Rachel Getting Married. I was excited at the plan since it had gotten some fantastic reviews. In fact, Entertainment Weekly described it as, "
Demme's [the director's]
finest work since The Silence of the Lambs, and a movie that tingles with life," and we all know how much I love
The Silence of the Lambs. And I'm a
Anne Hathaway fan, particularly following her
song and dance number with my Dapper Dan,
Hugh Jackman.
(Sidenote: I could have worked in at least three more links in that paragraph, but I restrained myself.)I have to say, I was less than thrilled with the movie. I found the family involved to be pretty unbelievable and at parts was truly angry with them (perhaps that's the plan?!). I guess I just can't see a family being that dysfunctional, that full of angst and that passive-aggressive (and, at times, just plain aggressive), all while being chummy about washing the dishes and toasting the happy couple.
I don't know quite how to explain it... it just struck me as unbelievable that a family would actually behave this way. And the total lack of resolution, between anyone, was just infuriating and didn't seem realistic to me. Perhaps I'm the exception though and am just one of a lucky few who don't have such tragically neurotic relatives. Thanks Mom and Dad!
But the night wasn't a total waste. We did glean some fantastic wedding ideas for the unmarried in our group:
1. If at all possible, have your wedding week extravanganza accompanied by its own personal soundtrack and violinist at all times. We're counting on Regina to come through on this count! But, you can't be afraid to tell said violinist to shut up when they're killing the extreme tension in the room.
2. Include as many cultures in the wedding events as possible, with no regard for the relevance of their inclusion. If possible, try to invite people of multiple backgrounds to be in your wedding party and have the actual wedding ceremony come from a completely different background. And, as appropriate (or not), incorporate some sort of ritualistic chanting into the mix, preferably by combining the bride and groom's names into one. Si-chel... Si-chel... Si-chel...
3. Force your bridesmaids to wear lilac even though they never wear lilac. Feel free to substitute some other random color if lilac happens to be your bridesmaids' color of choice.
4. Consume lots of booze. I realize this is typical for lots of wedding, but it really isn't in our circle. We've learned that alcohol will make everyone chatty and willing to offer up totally confusing toasts, and will, at the same time, allow those listening to the toasts to think they're hilarious and well-thought out. Double score!
5. Choose seating arrangements wisely and remember it's always best to put the potentially embarassing members of your family, even if they're your only sister, in the corner. It as, after all, your day. Oh, and using little knick-knacks to plan said seating arrangements is always better than going with the simpler route of plain old pen and paper.
6. Announce your pregnancy (or some other news of epic importance) during a completely unrelated conversation. Scratch that, during a completely unrelated argument. Because it's great to turn your sister into a bad guy and make everyone swoon over you by feigning exhaustion because of the growing little one.
7. Compete in dishwasher wars. Unbeknownst to me before watching this movie, loading the dishwasher is considered by some to be to manliest of all household sports and can create comraderie between a groom and his soon-to-be father-in-law in ways words cannot describe. If you're feeling particularly brave, you might even consider involving all relatives/wedding party members and creating a bracketed tournament.
8. Sing your vows. And for the love of all things matrimonial (is that even a word?) make sure the chosen song makes absolutely no sense, is longer than the rest of the ceremony and is sung extremely slowly... you know, slow enough for everyone in the room to reach the point of being uncomfortable. And then, make sure to shed a tear as if the sung vows were especially touching and not at all cheesy.
9. Slow dance as a foursome. There's nothing quite like forcing your ostracized sister to wear lilac, making her sit in the corner with the weirdos, and then including her in a private dance with your new husband. And since three's not enough, make sure you invite the best man to join in on the fun. Oh, and the closer the better.
10. Hire the human equivalent of Jello to serve as entertainment. Seriously folks, no wedding would be complete without nearly naked belly dancers/showgirls (??) jiggling the night away to open the reception, and later closing the festivities by slow-dancing with your crazy Uncle Bert. Only good things came come of this pairing. And if your quick like our our personal musician Regina is, you'll realize that the appropriate song choice for this portion of the wedding soundtrack is "
Gettin' Jiggly Wit It".