An old friend was telling me her horror story of an impromptu weekend wedding for her sister coming up, and I got to thinking about my various wedding experiences. I'm sure most of you would agree that weddings are best enjoyed free and clear of responsibility; that as a rule, the less well you know the happy couple, the more you can eat, drink and dance like a pig.

But those events where I've actually had something to do have all been tinged with some level of disaster. If I may:

• Late 1970's or early 1980's: I am wracked with uncontrollable coughing fits at the rehearsal (my part being the ringbearer¹ for the wedding of my mom's cousin Peggy. I was too embarrassed (sitting there up front in a church, a little monkey among adults) to just get up and go to the bathroom for a drink, so I practically strangled myself trying to hold the coughs in. Thankfully, no coughing occurred in the actual ceremony.
  
• October 1997: I had now graduated to the part of Best Man. The wedding itself was some 20 miles from the reception (held at the bride's father's yacht club), so the entire wedding party took a champagne-stocked limo to the club. We arrived with a half hour or so of time left on the limo, and at the impaired urging of the rest of the group, the Wife and I took the limo to our hotel (2 or 3 miles away) to check in and drop off our gear. However. There was a traffic jam on the way, and when we got to the hotel, there were none minutes left on the limo. I don't remember how we figured out the phone number of the yacht club, or what miracle caused someone there to actually answer the phone, but a neighbor of the bride's parents came tearing out to pick us up and bring us back. We raced in, out of breath and stone sober, leaving me several sweaty seconds to collect my thoughts before offering the toast.
  
• April 1999: Taking a cue from the groom, who insisted it was not important, the Wife and I skipped the rehearsal where I would have learned my ushering duties so we could see the aquarium at Scripps. Then when the time came to show folks to their seats, it was like leading Lewis and Clark through the Cascades. Also of note, I wore blue suede shoes which I don't think sat well with the groom's stylish parents.
  
• May 2001: I accidentally (Deliberately? Who said that?) misunderstood another set of ushering instructions and failed to purchase the prescribed brand of suit. (The facts that I had just bought a new $400 suit of my own and that my suits tend to sit in the closet about 363 days a year had nothing to do with it.) The omission caused a fair amount of consternation with the groom's family and their military background² --- maybe it was a uniform thing. I managed to atone by running mop-up errands and being generally useful in the frantic half-hour scramble before the ceremony.
  

The lesson to be learned from this: Don't ask me to do anything at your wedding.

¹ As the "Monsieur" suggested (but did not necessarily prove), I am in fact of the male persuasion, and will hereafter refer to the Spouse as the Wife.

² I still haven't heard how the family reacted to the pictures we took with the disposable cameras left on the reception tables, where I and a military academy friend of the groom enacted a series of photos that included hurling into the toilet at the same time and a fist/oar-fight on the rowboat dock of the resort.