Friday, October 21, 2011

The 40 Year-Old Newlyweds

Funny year for me as I had two friends get married on the same day this spring. I don't think weddings are funny (though they are a great source of comedy). It's funny because weddings were something that stopped for me about 10 years ago. Being in my mid 40's it seems all of my contemporaries were married years ago. It just seemed crazy that my last two unmarried friends would actually have their long awaited weddings on the same day.

By my count there are four major categories of weddings. First you have the early in life weddings which consist of two single people in their mid 20's to early 30s. Second is the work wedding where you really don't know the groom/bride that well but you work with their parents. Third is the marriage of your friends' children which I'm still too young to have attended but it's coming fast. And the fourth is the middle age wedding which seems to be the gig I'm attending more than anything else these days.

The first weddings I attending in the 90's were just crazy. Two young people getting married, tons of engagement parties and showers leading up to the momentous occasion. The big day would approach and all your college/beach/home friends would slowly pull into the wedding town. Lots of drinking, a round of golf followed by even more drinking. Six guys in one hotel room and no one even brought a wedding gift. A rehearsal dinner where everyone attempted to make certain the groom was entirely polluted so he'd be beyond hungover for his wedding day. In hindsight it would have better for the parents of the bride if we were never invited. They should have paid for all of us to go to Vegas for the weekend and leave their future son-in-law alone.

What's even more interesting was the amount of money this wedding cost. Typically the bride's family was spending more than a small fortune for their daughter to feel like a fairy princess on her special day. Not only were the groom's friend unworthy of such largess, these friends were likely to be the cause of any embarrassing scenes that might ruin princess's special day. And the poor behavior of a bunch of 20 somethings wasn't the craziest aspect of the wedding, instead it was the money. It's only in the hindsight of 20 years when the married couple is choking on a mortgage and college tuitions where the couple might really wish the bride's parents had given them a check as opposed to the party. The wedding was a seven hour event. That check could pay for more than a few years of college. Given the choice today I would have been married in the back yard with a couple of kegs. Heck, I would have even sprung for the totally disgruntled local high school kids who had the way-too-cool alternative rock band.

Things are so much different today as I'm started to attend "work weddings." It's a funny situation where I'm invited either by colleagues even though I really don't know their kids, or I'm inviting to someone in the office's wedding because I'm their manager. In both cases I barely know anyone and the invite feels entirely obligatory. Either way I feel one hundred years old. Now it's no shock my behavior has toned down in every aspect of my life in the last 15 years but now we're stuck at tables with people we don't know and forced to make small talk with other distant connections from some other boring place. In such cases I often rely on the "Where do you two go on your Honeymoon?" question to get the conversation going. It's topical and people never tire of speaking about themselves. Works every time.

Skipping over the marriages of my contemporaries' kids, I have attended quite a few middle aged marriages in the past few years. These marriages are similar to those marriages we attended in our 20s except we usually are much better behaved and they are not nearly as extravagant. The toned down expense makes sense. For the most part a middle aged couple getting married are paying for the reception themselves and that really focuses the bride and groom on what is absolutely necessary. The "over the top" elements are gone and if this is the bride's second wedding I wonder if she realized how spoiled it was to ask Daddy for a string quartet to play during the intermissions of the 20 piece band's set. God forbid there be no music during the dining period, cost be damned! Instead everything is done smarter. Receptions are held at the house, the ipod replaces the DJ/band, or even smarter the actual wedding is just immediate family and after the honeymoon a casual party is held for all their friends back at the house.

Despite the lack of pageantry what stands out for me is how much better middle aged people know one another when they get married. When you get married young you tend to view the world in rose colored glasses. Your careers are going to soar, your kids will be beautiful and healthy and you'll spend every Christmas with your family because how could your spouse expect you to miss it? Hard questions are often not considered or simply put off. This doesn't happen when people court in their 40s. People state their expectations very early in relationships because they know it's vital to get buy-in from a potential partner or it's time to jump ship. I think these two people are much more of a "team" when they actually get married than two starry eyed twenty-five year olds. Their agreement of how they spend their newly joint assets on a reception really reflects their connection and maturity.

Now even though the reception is relatively sober (there are glaring exceptions) middle aged weddings still come with some traditional events like a bachelor party. The most recent bachelor party was a perfect reflection of who we have become. We met on a Friday morning at a casino for a round of golf to be followed by dinner and attended a Jerry Seinfeld show. The entire event was remarkably mature and I'm not certain if we've become wise or boring at this point of our lives. I assume it is a little of both.

In a few short year's we'll start attending weddings for our friends' kids. Likewise we're likely to attend a 20th anniversary party for a couple whose wedding we attended in our 20s. Either way I'm excited because every wedding rocks. You share laughs, stories and drink. Doesn't matter to me if the music comes from an ipod or a 20 piece band, or if the beer comes from a keg in the backyard or the country club bar. It's always good to see everyone if we're not hazing the groom.