I Totally Meant to Do That (17 page)

Squish, squish, thump, sigh
.

Those were the sounds of my pumps sticking in the mud in quick succession, my rear reacquainting itself with the ground, and me closing my eyes to suffer in solitude the indignity of the joke I instantly, also, foresaw: “Hey bartender!”—I mouthed along as Mr. Haskins guffawed—“Cut her off!”

I stared up at him and the white tent behind him, feeling dizzy and, yes, slightly buzzed, but mostly confused. Was I prescient? I had literally seen the future an instant before it happened, right down to the hackneyed joke. I felt like Cassandra at the ball, doomed to spout party-foul prophecies that old men won’t believe.
No wonder I drink
, I thought, as the seat of my dress began to dampen with rain.

“Whoopsie Daisy,” Mr. Haskins said, sticking out his hand. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”

Before I could roll my eyes, there flashed a familiar look in his, and everything made sense: I hadn’t predicted the future; I’d relived the past. July, two years prior, Sea Island, Georgia. Different band, same song. Different friend’s father, same extra-dance-floor tumble. Different couple getting married—same wedding, which is to say, of the Southern variety.

They’re all the same. Sure, nuptial celebrations in general are pretty similar but, as I have come to realize since moving to New York and befriending people who invite me to weddings in other parts of the country, Southern people marry in a very specific way. And since one of those ways is in front of a huge audience—everyone is invited and everyone goes—I’ve experienced the Southern wedding many times, forty-one and counting by my best estimate. I relive the same weekend over and over and over and over and over again. It is permanently set on repeat in my life.

Sitting on the ground, looking up at Mr. Haskins, feeling the wetness soak through to my skin, I figured this out. It is a strange curse but I’ve used it to my advantage. Case in point: I have since danced many times in heels on a makeshift dance floor to the song “Brick House” by the Commodores, and I have since danced with the fathers of many of my friends, but never again have I landed in the mud. I’m doomed to repeat history, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn from it.

As someone who has been afforded the knowledge gained from both repetition and comparison, allow me to enumerate the basic differentiating characteristics of the Southern wedding and, along the way, offer advice.

First and most important is the one I’ve already mentioned: size. There were 560 guests at one of my sisters’ receptions and 430 at the other’s—and those are only the people who came. Just so you know, years passed before my mother admitted how many people she’d invited to Lou’s wedding (800) so yes, she realizes that some people find it strange. For Southerners, however, it is pretty normal. In fact, when faced with such high numbers, some brides find it easier to do away with lists altogether and instead invite the entire town. Literally. In small cities, including Tarboro and Washington, North Carolina, it is customary for a bride’s family to print the reception’s address in the local newspaper in lieu of mailing invitations.

Obviously there are small affairs in the South, but they are the exception. Small weddings are suspicious; they imply that the bride’s family has something to hide … like a Yankee groom. So, in response to the exclamation New Yorkers most frequently utter regarding my summer calendar: No, actually, I’m
not
that popular.

Unlike in other parts of the country, a guest at a Southern wedding cannot give the couple money. It’s considered tacky. After the honeymoon, they may return your present to the store and exchange it for money, but they first need a tangible gift to display at the bride’s home. Old ladies will view the loot and gift cards remain attached, so your token of love had better be good.

Wear something pastel to the wedding-day brunch, especially if you’re a dude. Men might also consider seersucker and bow ties, and if the luncheon is casual, remember that men wear shorts two extra inches above the knee in the South, and never wear socks with
loafers. All of these style elements are part of a look that my friend Katie McElveen dubbed “Jethro-sexual.”

The fourteen girls in matching outfits at the reception are not the entertainment; they’re the bridesmaids. Six times have I been one among twelve or more. Sometimes there are honorary bridesmaids, too, who were also friends with the bride in college but had been in a different sorority. Then there are readers, ushers, girls who pass out programs. I’m surprised there aren’t also candle lighters, seat warmers, bag holders, aisle clearers.… Why not save money by bestowing on your friends the designation “bartender”?

I mock out of love. Yes, it is ridiculous to stuff twenty-eight people plus a couple and the preacher into the apse of a church. But it stems from a desire to be inclusive, which I find endearing, even if I’m out a couple extra hundred dollars because of it. Southerners want everyone to be a part of the celebration the way kindergarten teachers want everyone to participate in art hour. There is even a place for the kid who eats paint—which means, again, even though I have been a bridesmaid eight times, a junior bridesmaid three times, and an honorary bridesmaid once, I am
not
that popular.

Don’t be shy at the buffet. The chicken fingers, deviled eggs, roast beef sandwiches, potato salad, shrimp cocktail, and tomato aspic are not the appetizers served during what people up north call cocktail hour. There is no cocktail hour. There is no sit-down dinner. There is only buffet. Where would five hundred people sit? Right, yes: You’ll probably have to eat that standing up.

Don’t clink a fork to your glass. That is not the cue for the bride and groom to kiss, as it is in the North. If you clink, everyone will stop talking, turn around, look at you, and wait for a speech—which would be weird because toasts are done on Friday night during the elaborate pre-wedding-party wedding party, replete with another live band and buffet.

Don’t ask about the “bachelorette party”; we call it a “girls’ weekend.” People aren’t lined up to visit an electrical generator; that’s actually a fancy three-room portalet. And don’t expect the couple to be announced; it’s considered tacky to draw attention to yourself in that way, so instead there will be fireworks when they leave.

Oh, and that pale bunch huddled by the bar wearing black? Those are the New Yorkers. They are friends of the bride from that year she spent getting a postgrad degree in partying New York style. They are discussing the town’s quaint way of life. They are drinking vodka sodas and hitting on the cater-waiters. They can’t believe that the men in this part of the country dance without dropping ecstasy first.

Now, I didn’t fly all the way down to hang out with other New Yorkers, but occasionally I do flee to their dour corner, the way a kid runs to the safety of home base in a game of freeze tag. This is because, as long as I am with them, I am guaranteed not to have one of these conversations:

What? No! That … that’s the same thing!!! Although I admire women who can write about their New York love lives, I am not one of them. But I can’t expect people back home to understand this, because Sarah Jessica Parker ruined it for the rest of us.

Years after
Sex and the City
has been canceled, it still exerts its influence, spreads its myths. I am nothing like Carrie Bradshaw! First of all, I can’t afford to live in Manhattan. Also: I have more than three friends, I do not squeal, my gay friends aren’t bitchy, and this phrase has never been a part of my audible inner monologue: “I couldn’t help but wonder.…”

Regardless, again and again, I encounter people back home who imagine that my life in New York is spent pouting at rich men from inside a too tight, two-tone poof dress, which I will later stain with tears.

Aargh!

I wish I didn’t know that experience so well, but it is part and parcel of being Southern-wedding omniscient. I have seen it all before. Whether you need to know about HBO-perpetuated stereotypes, or choreography as part of a cheerleading-squad-sized bridal party, I’m your gal. And let’s be honest, you don’t have a lot of other options. If you get an invitation to a rehearsal dinner party and the dress code is listed as “Delta casual,” you can either come to me or hike through the Mississippi swamps seeking answers from an ancient shaman, because one thing is certain: You cannot ask the bride.

I began to experience these weekends as unique only after moving to New York, when home began to appear strange. Of course, most of the weddings I’ve attended have been during that period anyway—the postcollege period—twenty-eight of the forty-one, to be exact. That’s a lot of plane flights.

In one particularly busy summer—weddings happen in waves, one of the many patterns noticeable from a macro view (another: the canonization of “Hey Ya”)—I flew south for seven ceremonies. I was like a bird that couldn’t grasp the fundamentals of migration. Whether on a sparrow’s constitution or a girl’s wallet, that is expensive behavior. So I picked up a second job waiting tables; this was that time I told you about, the summer I worked at Chumley’s. When I revealed the aim of my enterprise to a coworker, her eyes grew twice their size.

“How many weddings?” she asked.

“Seven.”

“In one summer?”

“Well,” I said, “there are actually eight but two are the same weekend and, unfortunately, in different states.”

“You mean you’re
going
to all seven?” she stammered. “Couldn’t you have said ‘no’ to some?”

I gave her a quizzical look. The inner question instigating my expression was: Why would I say no? But that did not come out of my mouth, for although I am slow enough to have never before considered that the “regretfully declines” option on a wedding invitation is in fact an option, I am quick enough to know that admitting such would betray too much. Instead, I uncrossed my eyes, made up an excuse that I needed to be home anyway over some of those weekends, and skillfully steered the conversation toward the flies.

“I know,
so gross
,” she replied and tottered off to seat some balding yuppies.

After that I did not broadcast my plans so liberally. It only raises questions, whose answers the interrogator would find insufficient. I was acting like one of those dogs that digs holes through the living room carpet: exhibiting a behavior beyond the borders of its correlating environment. This sort of disconnect would eventually
have far-reaching consequences. Flying back and forth so frequently taxed more than my wallet; it turned me into a psychological mess. It would be difficult enough to oscillate between two different lifestyles, but in my case, these lifestyles were both extremes.

Weddings are intense and euphoric, an amplification of a culture’s best attributes. Think of the positive Southern stereotypes you know. Hospitable? Five hundred guests. Traditional? When the band plays beach music, my parents’ generation crowds the floor with ’60s era shagging. Colorful? There is a slightly senile woman in Wilmington, North Carolina, who invites herself to every local reception, and family after family only smiles and says, “Yes.” Look for her next time you go; she’ll be the one asking what sushi is.

New York is also an extreme—except it is that way
all the time
. This city is an amusement park: Everything is concrete, it’s full of tourists, and food vendors line the sidewalks. It’s like living in a casino: The lights never dim, there’s an incessant din of bells and horns, and there’s always someone, somewhere, crying in a bathroom.

What I’m saying is, a Southern wedding is like the South on heroin. And New York City is like
life
on crack. Therefore swinging between them rendered my brain a speedball.

There were so many behavioral changes to make with each transition, so many little things to remember! When I went home, I had to pack an alternate wardrobe in my bag, including elegant shoes, and a different vocabulary in my head, one with words such as “please” and “thank you.” I had to learn to walk slowly. I had to learn to wait. Then, of course, two days later it’d be back to the city where people who “wait” meet the vocabulary
get out of the goddamn way
, and shoes are chosen based on their ability to step over those who didn’t know in which direction “the goddamn” was.

At first, I screwed up. I’d bring home Chucks instead of heels and forget the difference between begonias and azaleas. I landed
my proverbial rump in the mud on more than a few occasions. But this gave me an idea. Just as I’d done with the ins and outs of the weddings themselves, I would let repetition be my guide. If you experience an outcome frequently enough, you can memorize its preceding cues. Then, you will always know how you are supposed to behave. Yes, I realize that this is how sociopaths blend in. And that is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.

Here’s how it works: If the woman at the checkout counter looks at me, smiles, and says, “Hot day out there, ain’t it?” I am supposed to settle in for what might be a long conversation, even if there are people behind me in line.

However, if the woman at the checkout counter avoids eye contact, chews gum sullenly, and talks through me to the woman bagging groceries behind me, I’m supposed to continue texting.

Sometimes I must rely on tone. If the phrase “The body of Christ, the cup of salvation” is delivered monotonously, I eat the wafer and drink the grape juice because I am taking communion in my church back home. However, if the same phrase carries self-righteous judgment and aggression, I do nothing because I am riding the F train.