GOING TO THE CHAPEL AND WE'RE GONNA BITCH THE WHOLE WAY THERE

Soooo ... Saturday was the wedding with the bride who called me last week at 4:30 a.m. to chit-chat about the correct order that she wanted the wedding party announced.

"First Nancy and Jeff. Then Stacey and John. Then ... are you listening??"

"It's 4:30 in the morning, you psycho."

"I know ... BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!"

Oh heaven fucking forbid I might want to get a few hours sleep in the middle of the night, you diabolical twat. Please ... prattle on. Be my fucking guest.

Yep.

So Saturday I show up at the place an hour before the reception starts.

The people in charge of fixing the food and decorating, etc ... well they were about as friendly as a bag full of rattlesnakes.

"Hi, I'm the DJ! Do you know where I'm supposed to be set up?"

"No."

"Well, I'm guessing this corner over here! Do you know where there's a six or eight foot table that I can use (per my contract) with a tablecloth?"

"No."

"Great! I'll just snoop around until I find one. Gee whiz ... are those chicken nuggets? They look delicious!"

"No."

"Awesome! Hey, would you mind fucking the fuck off while I mentally strangle your fucking ass?"

"No."

Anyway ... they sucked.

The bride and groom show up in one of those Hummer limos which I think are quite possibly the most tacky redneck vehicles on the face of the earth, but that's neither here nor there.

I poke my head into the limo and there's mirror balls and disco lights and all kinds of tacky shit in there.

"This is nice!" I lie and then throw out the obligatory "And you look STUNNING!" line that I give every bride whether they look like Cindy Crawford or Cindy Brady (during her chunky with braces period).

I SWEAR TO GOD that the bride then said "I'd be happy if we just didn't even have a reception. Everything has gone wrong today."

This is coming from a bride who I personally think is DAMNED LUCKY to have finally found a man at her advanced age. Her biological clock is ticking so loud that it ticked itself off the wall and crashed onto the floor.

She's no spring chicken is what I'm getting at. And her wrinkles, highlighted by various shades of makeup, made her look like an evil clown.

"Well, the reception's going to go GREAT!" I lied as I covertly checked my watch to determine how much more of my life I had to give up for this nagging whore. "Let's go over the entrance of the wedding party one more time!"

So we did that, blah blah blah.

I waltzed back into the reception area and tried to look enthusiastic, dancing to the beat of the music as I made my way back to the DJ table.

I started to introduce the wedding party which went pretty well until the parents of the bride just shuffled in between the ring bearers and the flower girls because "they were ready to sit down".

Oh. Sure. Whatever, you toothless fucking hags.

The bride and groom walked in and the bride managed a feeble wave and a quick smile before she scowled her way in front of me.

The groom, bless this guy's heart, he looked like a deer in headlights. He had been married before and had four teenaged kids and was considerably older than the bride who, as I've already stated, was beginning to feel the eggs dry up in her ovaries and made a move for the first man who bought her a drink in whatever honky tonk bar she frequents on a nightly basis.

He looked like "Is there any possible way I can back out of here now? Could anybody lend me a few bucks so I can get a one-way plane ticket to Iowa and change my name to Herbie Lipschitz?"

So the wedding party's all standing in front of me and I say "Alright, everyone's been eating and the bride and groom are ready to serve dessert! So let's focus on the wedding cake and the bride and groom!!!!!!!!!!!"

Except, the bride has decided that since she's already on the "dance floor", she wants to have their first dance NOW.

Nevermind the schedule/agenda that we had went over several times in the last few months that said "Entrance/Cake Cutting/Toasts/First Dance/Parents Dance/Garter Toss/Bouquet Toss".

Oh hell no.

Now, she wanted it to be "Entrance/First Dance/Fuck With The DJ's Head All Night".

Luckily, I have the ability to adjust to any situation and got on the mic and said "Even better ... THE BRIDE AND GROOM ARE GOING TO HAVE THEIR FIRST DANCE NOW!!"

I played their song and they started dancing and I SWEAR TO GOD the crowd got louder than the music as they COMPLETELY ignored the bride and groom.

I looked out and NOBODY was watching them.

They were all grumbling for cake.

As I quickly learned (after the first dance and parents dance...minus the groom and his mother dance because the groom's mother had decided that she "didn't want to attend the wedding" which may have caused a bit of the stress in the bride and groom), the crowd was waiting for the cake so they could then LEAVE.

The cake was cut.

The cake was eaten.

Forty of the 60 people in attendance left within 15 minutes.

This really didn't help matters any with the bitchy bride.

"I can't believe everyone left so quickly," she confided in me while we got ready for the bouquet toss. "This sucks!"

Now ... I had already warned the bride months ago that she was competing against some football games which you just have to deal with in Alabama. When there's a football game going on, the streets are almost clear, the malls are empty ... football is everything in Alabama. You're getting married the day Auburn plays LSU? The gift's in the mail, Sis.

But she didn't believe me. Trust me ... I see the amount of attendees in the spring and summer ... and then I see them in the fall. It's always a dramatic shift in attendance and brides just won't listen to me.

Anyway, four little girls below the age of 10 get on the dance floor to catch her bouquet.

The bouquet hits the floor and they all stare at it until one of the kids slowly bends down to pick it up, not really understanding the time-honored tradition of actually "catching" the goddamned thing.

The garter toss doesn't go much better.

But the worst part was the Money Dance.

For those of you not familiar with it, the Money Dance is where the bride and groom dance with everyone in attendance who pay money to dance with them for 30 seconds to a minute.

It's basically a way for the bride and groom to earn money for their honeymoon. I play about three songs and the people line up, paying their money to the best man and maid of honor to dance with them.

And I STRESS that it's not all about the money. If all you do is carry a check card (like me) ... IT'S OKAY. Just come up and dance with them and tell them how much you enjoyed the wedding, wish them well, tell them how handsome the DJ is, etc.

So I do my spiel, the bride and groom stand on the dance floor and ... nothing.

Nobody comes forward to dance.

And this was before everyone left.

So I think "Well, maybe they didn't understand the premise."

So I go over it again and stress "It's okay if you don't have any money."

Still nobody.

NOBODY wants to dance with the bride and groom.

At this point, it's very very very very very awkward for the bride and groom.

I've done this about 25 times in the last year and have NEVER seen this happen.

Finally, one of the groom's daughters dances with him.

And the bride joins them so it's a threeway.

And I end the shit after the first song as people sit there and bitch about whatever they're bitching about.

This woman was a control freak with a capital "cont".

I could tell that from the first meeting I had with the bride and groom ... and the bride's mama.

When the mother said that anyone who wanted to smoke OR DRINK ALCOHOL they had to go outside because this is the Lord's Day and a very Blessed Day and a very Special Day and she didn't feel like alcohol should be a part of the process ... and the bride didn't say shit in return??

I KNEW what kind of mama I was dealing with.

This woman CONSTANTLY came up to me to bitch about worrying about this wedding day for the last year.

"It's over, thank the Lord it's over," she kept saying. "I couldn't have taken another day of this stress."

Ummmmm ... you've got 60 people in a VFW Hall.

The decorations look like a fourth grade class' Thanksgiving decorations.

You've got chicken nuggets, meatballs and what looks like a fruit tray from the local deli.

Your daughter's stumbling around in a Valium haze, bitching about everything that's gone wrong on her wedding day to anyone that'll listen.

I'm the only goddamned shining light on this whole fucking day and you're trying to bring ME down with this babbling insanity as if it's YOUR fucking day and your groom got eaten by a fucking bear?!?

Step off, Mama.

I've got a Cha Cha Slide to play.

The best I could tell, the mother paid for the entire shindig.

She paid me anyway.

And bitched enough to make me believe she was paying for everything.

The bad vibes given off by the bride and her mother were enough to send everyone packing an hour earlier than the party was supposed to end.

Which I would normally take personally as in "I should have kept them here longer".

But it was obvious that it wasn't me that ran them all off.

Yeah.

So anyway ... that was my Saturday.

I can honestly say I've never been happier to have a wedding behind me than that one.

I bet the wedding's already been annulled.