Jamie Takes Lessons from TV Weddings

New houses are exhausting, hence the lack of posts.  But I promise to try harder...

Next month my very good friend Krystal is getting married and I am headed off to the Bay Area for the wedding weekend. Krystal (and her fiancé David) have been quite on top of all this wedding coordination and I know that it’s going to be a fantastic wedding. And I also know that they are low key enough to deal with whatever hiccups may occur. Because what we have all learned from TV is that something will inevitably happen that is, hmmm… unplanned. But of course, we’ve also learned some helpful hints to making the big day enjoyable and coping with whatever happens: As I began work on this post about pop culture weddings, it became increasingly apparent that while there are an abundance of quality TV weddings to discuss, this really needed to be about How I Met Your Mother. I mean, yes, Ben Wyatt's dream bachelor party and Krystal's bachelorette game night as well as her wedding shower were pretty much the same thing (Settlers of Catan, of course). And the best example of having your friends officiate your wedding is clearly Howard & Bernadette's rooftop nuptials on The Big Bang Theory. Liz Lemon taught us that you can do whatever you want for your wedding, just make sure it’s what you actually want. This was almost a blog about Friends & HIMYM weddings, but as amusing and enlightening all the Friends’ wedding wackiness was, it just didn't seem quite as relevant at this moment. And really, how could it? How does it get any more current than the fact that Krystal & David are going to share an anniversary with Robin & Barney. These characters are us. Okay, not exactly, they are TV characters. And Krystal and David are definitely not Robin and Barney.  But they are our age. They have friends getting married, buying houses, having kids, but still not completely comfortable (or at least experiencing varying levels of comfort) with this adult thing we seem to have stumbled upon as we hit 30+. We understand these characters, and share their recurring inside jokes. So when looking for wedding wisdom, it seems only appropriate to see what we can glean from all the weddings (and near-weddings) they have attended over the last 8 seasons, chronologically:

Claudia (& Stuart)’s Wedding: The wedding of the gang’s friends Stuart and Claudia teaches us many things. Claudia is always a little intense, but she’s definitely one step from a complete breakdown here. So it would seem that the participation of both bride & groom in the wedding planning and a solid support structure for both is important.  Also, timely and accurate RSVPs.

Memorable Quote: Claudia: No, no, no.... Listen to me, if I go to my wedding and the cake is not Tahitian vanilla, I will come down there and burn your little shop to the ground. Haha, do you wanna find out if I'm kidding?

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: They totally have this one covered. All hands on deck, great family & friends, and I have not heard of anyone being threatened.

Lily & Marshall: What we learn from one of TV's most perfect couples is that no matter how much you plan, things will not go exactly as you want. Accepting that upfront will make everything much smoother. Even if the harpist goes into labor, the flowers don’t show but your ex-boyfriend does and the groom shaves his head to rid himself of frosted tips. People will step up to help out. But maybe we should get Marshall’s law school buddy Brad (played by the… I am hesitating on word choice here, but I’m going to go just for it, delicious Joe Manganiello) on hand just in case. Except that he does cause some damage. That’s okay, it’s worth it. You have to make sacrifices. I have gotten off track (Manganiello has that effect on me) and I haven’t even mentioned how Barney teaches us all how you can get whatever you need at a wedding as long as you explain that it is “for the bride.” But I would be remiss to not mention that they also give us the most important lesson of all: for the love of all that is holy be sure to eat.

Memorable Quote: Barney: May I have everybody's attention...
[Everyone ignores Barney]
Barney: It's for the bride.
[Everyone stops talking and turns towards Barney]

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: Everyone already knows to make sure the bride eats. We’ve seen the alternative.

Barney's brother James: I know what you’re saying. Wait, this episode is before Lily & Marshall’s wedding. Yes, but the actual wedding is after it. In this episode Barney learns that his brother James is planning to give up the single life and settle down with his partner Tom. Barney is upset, but ultimately caves after learning James & Tom plan to adopt a baby. No one can resist a cute baby.

Memorable Quote: “If gay guys start getting married, then suddenly the world is going to be doing it. That’s how it works: they start something, then six months later, everyone follows… Gay marriage is going to cause single life as we know it to die out. Think of how the American family will be strengthened.” .

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: There will be adorable children. And a bunch of people who agree with Barney, that the American family would be strengthened if James & Tom could just get married.

Stella & Ted’s almost wedding: Pay attention to the red flags. The proper thing to take away should probably be no exes allowed (and My Best Friend's Wedding would probably back that up), but I think the first red flag was the lack of booze and meat.

Memorable Quote: Marshall: There's no meat.
Lily: There's no alcohol.
Marshall: It gets worse—I am 90% sure that guy you were talking with used to be lead singer of the Spin Doctors

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: Booze & meat are on the menu. No red flags here.

Ted's Mom & Clint: We don’t get a ton from the actual wedding here, this is really more about Ted and his house, which is a disaster in the episode but turns out to be the house we have been glimpsing whenever they remember to show us his kids (who are amazingly still listening to this story).

Memorable Quote: Ted: I'm gonna set up the grill out back, it's gonna be a total sausage fest. Party. Burgers. We'll do burgers.

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: This is all about the inside jokes when one from your own life (SausageFest) makes its way into a show, you’ve kind of got to make that the quote, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the theme of your blog.

Punchy’s Wedding: Ted is terrible with toasts. Remember: “The happy couple needs to hear this! Things end, but from the ashes of your statistically probable divorce, hope can rise anew.” Oh, Ted. But thankfully he has wonderful friends (although I am still not sure why they all came to Punchy’s wedding) who step up and help him out. Because, “the only person who loves Ted Mosby more than Marshall Erickson is drunk Marshall Erickson.” We see in this episode why it was so very thoughtful of Ted & Robin to keep their break-up a secret through Lily & Marshall’s wedding, so as not to deflect attention on their big day. When Marshall announces Lily’s pregnancy and the bride thinks he is talking about her, all hell breaks loose. But, the guy’s name is Punchy, I feel like he can handle a little craziness at his wedding.

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: No idea, but if anyone has any pregnancy or break-up announcements, maybe hold off. 

Barney& Robin: We’ve seen a little cold feet, but we’ve also seen a happy bride dancing with her father at the reception. We know Ted is going to meet the elusive mother (finally), but the rest is a mystery.

Memorable Quotes: Ted: Oh thank God! Barney Stinson needs you right before his wedding, you assume there's at least one dead stripper in the closet.

Applicable to K&D’s Wedding?: It’s the same damn day. I mean, that’s pretty much it. Well that, and we don’t know what will happen.  But I have a feeling it will be a spectacularly good time.

What we’ve learned from the all of these, is that no matter what happens along the way, relax and enjoy the day. And keep the bride fed.

 

Coming Soon: Sarah follows this with an analysis of Friends weddings, complete with detailed quotes that she does with no research.  She’s like an elephant.

Kacey and the Art of Surprise....

This is a long over-due blog… I feel like so much has happen.

Jamie mentioned in her last blog that I was headed to Bali for my two week spring break. PSYCH! I snuck home like a ninja and surprised the crap out of my family. It was awesome! But now I’m back in Abu Dhabi until summer.

The second thing that has been happening just in the past week… I started watching Battlestar Galactica and last night I finished season one. Now thankfully I have Netflix and won’t have to wait for a whole summer to find out what happens…but the surprise ending of the first season, combined with my recent awesome surprise home got me thinking about all the other shocking moments… well in television.

And TA-DA I came up with a blog!

WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS (Granted slightly outdated spoilers…BUT STILL MAJOR SPOILERS)!

Now obviously this is totally my personal list regarding moments that I remember watching television and say “holy &#?%!” … and honestly this day in age with spoilers all over the internet it’s hard to do that (as I have recently discovered with Downtown Abbey because I have NOT watched season 3)…but here some moments from some of my favorite shows.

Friends… Ross’s wedding to Emily. Two things: Monica and Chandler in bed together and then Ross saying Rachel’s name at his wedding. Oops!

Alias… SOOO many WTF moments in this show, but perhaps the one that made me physically react the most because I was on the edge of my seat  was Vaughn starting to tell Sydney who he really was but then BAM! They are hit by a truck…end of season.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer… There are two here. Buffy dying was pretty shocking….but the show was returning so I knew it wasn’t permanent. Probably even more shocking was her mom dying. With all the violence and death on this show… her mom dying from natural causes ended up being the most tragic of all.

Doctor Who… surprises at every turn here and I could say either the separating of Doctor and Companion  or a regeneration is always a bit intense, but since I’ve started watching Doctor Who I always knew those were coming. However so much happened along the way that I didn’t see coming… Few moments I remember going “WHAT!”: River Song meeting the Doctor but he didn’t know who she was (and we didn’t know who River was)… Amy being fake Amy…Amy and Rory being River’s parents… Every time Rory died… and River being the Doctor’s wife. Yes most of those have to do with River. Overall Moffat just keeps me guessing.

Lost….lord we don’t have time for that.

Battlestar Galactica… Okay I’m only one season in, but the end of that first season when Boomer shoots the Old Man was a total heart stopper.

Torchwood… when everybody dies. First Toshiko and Owen die… at the end of season 2… than Ianto dies in mini-series “Children of Earth” which is possibly one of the most intense and most shocking mini-series ever. Jack sacrifices his own grandson to save the world... just... too much.

Grey's Anatomy… so the finale where Meredith realizes their unknown crash victim was George was honestly when I stopped watching. That was such an edge of the seat season ending and I had to spend the whole summer wondering if he died (or Izzy). The next season just couldn’t live up to it. (However, Sarah has informed me about later happenings as she is a dedicated fan and I hear the finale with the gunman tops all other season finales.)

Fringe… again another JJ Abrams creation full of crazy-ass shit. But it all really kicked off when I realized that Olivia had managed to cross over to another universe at the end of season 1 and Leonard Nimoy was waiting for her in the alternative universe. Crazy.

Sherlock the miniseries…I didn’t know much about Sherlock Holmes before this miniseries and the Robert Downey Jr. movie versions, but I knew enough to know that Sherlock falls and “dies” in the “Reichenbach Fall” (but doesn’t really die). However, the whole finale of the second season and all the twists and turns about Moriarty setting Sherlock up just blew me away…and I still found the end utterly shocking.

I wasn’t alive for it actually happening… but honorable mention goes to M*A*S*H and the announcement of the death of Col. Blake because story goes that not even the cast new it was coming. It still gives me shivers and brings me to tears just thinking about it.

Okay that’s enough for now… there might be more later because the surprises just continue, especially as I continue to watch new shows. But I don’t want to give too much away!

Coming Soon: Sarah composes an impassioned essay about the importance of pencil safety.