HTV Wedding Week: Reception Q & A
If I had readers, they'd no doubt seek my advice on a wide range of topics. And, since this is wedding week at HTV (no, I don't care if I'm the only person who thinks this is funny), these readers might ask me hard-hitting wedding-related questions like the following:
I'm at a reception with an open bar. How much can I drink?
An open bar is a green light. It says that the bride's parents or whoever paid for the wedding hate both your liver and your brain. And, wouldn't you know it? You hate your liver and your brain, too. Have another drink.
The hot bridesmaid just strolled onto the dance floor for the bouquet toss. Is she fair game to hit on? I know I can hook up with her.... Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know it!
Settle down, Beavis. When the flower chuck rolls around, any wedding DJ worth his weight in ABBA CDs will try to load up the dance floor as much as possible, because no woman wants to be seen as the poster child for "3 billion men can't be wrong." So, while the DJ will first request the presence of all single women, he will often then clarify that he means any woman who is unmarried. As it happens, being unmarried covers a lot of scenarios. That tall bridesmaid with the long, dark wavy hair and the disarming smile might be dating a guy, dating ten guys, dating 3 guys and 2 girls... don't assume that her mere presence for the bouquet toss implies that she's available.
Conventional male wisdom suggests that bridesmaids are easy marks because their sister or friend is getting married, they're feeling lonely and neglected, and they're more likely to act out by hooking up with some loser like me. But, I've never managed to hook up with a bridesmaid. What gives?
Conventional male wisdom is an oxymoron. That's your first problem. Your second problem is that you're living in the post-Wedding Crashers world, in which most women have mistakenly supposed that most men are Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn bajingo-monsters, and are therefore guarding against messing around with a walking stereotype.
But, I couldn't hook up with bridesmaids before the release of Wedding Crashers, either. WTF?
Hmmm. Sounds like you either need to be better looking or making more money.
Can I try to pick up one of the groom's or bride's exes?
In general, it's not considered very sporting to jump one of your friend's exes, regardless of whether you're at a wedding or not. I know of only one real-life exception to this rule, but that had more to do with the groom's mostly-joking hope that his sleazy man-whore friend would give an ex-girlfriend a case of the clap than anything else. Weddings can be so romantic.
