Above Your Butt

Okay, so there are a few choice phrases I learned from my (otherwise crazy and unpleasant) French grandmother, and one of them is that sometimes people try to "poot above their butts," meaning that they try to do something unnatural so that they can try to impress people.

Well, the wedding on Saturday was the perfect example of such a thing.

It was, in a word, dull.

That's okay. There was no obvious major drama, but the whole wedding seemed about checking things off a list.

First dance? Check
Dance with appropriate elders? Check
Cake cut? Check
Speeches? Check
Bride and groom visit the tables? Uh...seem to have forgotten that one.
In a room of barely 100 people, I never once spoke to the bride, nor did she and her groom visit each of the tables and thank their guests for attending. That's the one I wish they'd remembered, because without a few words with each guest, the bride and groom simply seemed like pieces in an elaborate game set up by both of their mothers.

The groom's mother wanted something fancy enough to speak to her family's stance in the community. The bride's mother just wanted complete control (she put reserved signs on the tables for "her" guests and let the others simply wander around in confusion).

All I know is I left that wedding feeling sad. Those two deserved a big party with music released sometime AFTER 1986. They deserved people on the dance floor. And they deserved to have their friends at the wedding instead of an extensive list of family and family friends.

They deserved to embrace the reality of their lives and their families and simply have a big 'ole party.

Here's what I say (though don't try to hold me to this), when the time comes for my wedding (still very, very, very far in the distance), I don't want a classy affair. I want a party. Class is overrated. Especially when it's obtained by pooting above your butt.