Wedding Trends

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF

Financial analysts tell us there’s no need to worry about the future of the agricultural sector. Forget cotton, corn, soybeans, and other unpredictable crops. They have a new bumper crop – as old as mankind, itself. Weddings.

Have you noticed this new trend? I tell you this in case the thought crosses your short, but navigable mind. You say you’re already married? No matter. Today it’s easy to ring out the old, ring in the new, and get a brand new, fresh one who tells new jokes, wears new clothes, and has new fascinating faults. But be careful – she can do the same to you, too – and sometimes their timing is most inconvenient.

But this new wedding trend – unpatented – free for you to use – is steadily growing. It goes by many names, the most prevalent of which is a “Barn” wedding. Or bucolic or farm or hayseed – all implying that the contractual arrangements take place in a rural area that has few public toilets, no paved streets, is hidden behind forests, and is impossible to find without the new model GPA – the MCMWAY – the “MooCowMoo where are you” system. Hotels and churches are out; barns, silos, irrigated fields are in. I even have a friend who proposed by whispering, “moo” in his loved one’s ear.

I should know about this rural wedding trend. We attended one recently. I’m a veteran of dozens of nuptial ceremonies. I mean as a guest, not a principle. If I had a dollar for every wedding I’ve attended, I could buy a red barn of my own. Naturally, we got lost. Arrived late, which is actually a social bonus because if you make your way to the front rows disrupting the audience as the clergyman is speechmaking, everybody knows you drove fifty miles from civilization thereby missing the NFL game of the week, but elevating your social status to the penthouse suite.

But for the sake of old friends we sacrificed and there we were in a big, red barn shivering with a couple hundred people who only got there in time because they had a MCMWAY system.

The preacher paused to take a breath – the bride and groom quickly embraced – why listen to another twenty minutes of legal obligations. Another new trend in ceremonies – besides the attendance of cows, horses, pigs, and other legitimate inhabitants of the barn – is to bring a couple lawyers to protect their bridal clients. Watch, it’s coming.

But back to the present. The crowd, seizing opportunity, rushes for the open-air exits as the ceremony ends; correctly figuring that money saved by lack of a hotel ballroom would be extravagantly expended on food and drink. Right they were. In a separate barn a lavish reception awaited us. Not one, but two bars quenched our thirst. All that expense that used to go to a hotel chain filled our plates and glasses. (The animals were not allowed in the reception – they enviously nibbled grass in their surrounding fields.)

Our food and drink were superlative.

And most unusual, no lines at the bars.

“Best wedding I’ve ever been to,” I announced repetitively to anybody within thirty feet, who stopped to listen to this guy with a drink in each hand and a wife who loyally stood with two replacement beverages., I think a horse and two cows joined in the conversation, too.