But after knowing him for so long, and after attending numerous weddings for other friends, coming up with a simple essay to read shouldn't have been too difficult. But it has been, Dana, and I'm sorry. I've found it impossible to match an essay on marriage with the tone of a wedding, especially your perfectly planned one. I'm sure there's a writer out there who's done it, and I'll keep looking. I just can't pull this one off.
Weddings are dubious propositions.
People expend tremendous amounts of money and energy to promote the concept of a lifelong bond between two people who pledge to always love one another. A noble idea, except that, statistically, it would probably be wiser to put all the money on a sure-thing race horse. Sure, a wedding day has its place as a great, planned affair when, for just a few hours, everyone does what the happy couple wants and everything goes according to the happy couple's plans. But after the gifts are unwrapped and the guests amble home, all that's left are a wife, a husband, a ton of wrapping paper and the realization that the headaches they feel are the beginnings of hangovers that will last for the rest of their lives. A good wedding-day reading should say these things.