Please Keep Putting Me At The Worst Table At Your Wedding

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We hear an awful lot about “wedding season” and the assorted fanfare that comes with it. I’m going to make a declaration. “Wedding Season” is now officially year-round. It’s a perma-state of affairs. A gauntlet of social orgasms, unrelenting at every turn of the calendar. I have but one simple request: please keep putting me at the shittiest table you got.

Your wedding is your day. Putting me at the shitty table gives me a blank canvas to work with while simultaneously placing zero expectations on myself and my fellow guests. See that awkward folding divider? Put me behind it. I don’t need to hear the maid of honor’s speech entirely. Once you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all. Auxiliary room off to the side with reasonable bar access? Hell yes. On the balcony overlooking the dancefloor behind a stack of folding tables? Absolutely. I’m all for it. See that massive load-bearing pillar? Shove me behind it and forget you even invited me.

Being placed at the worst table is an honor and a privilege. If I see double digits on my namecard, I’m a happy man. I am isolated from any potential questions about my job, my relationship(s) or lack thereof, wayward bridesmaids who reek of desperation and basically anyone I don’t want to talk to. Quite heavenly. Look, we’re decent friends and I see you often enough to know that I don’t have to be following you and your new spouse around all night. I’m here for one reason only: a healthy body count. I’m scenery and I know it. You wanted a pretty face and a friend you were comfortable enough to hug in front of your other more important friends, which makes me mysterious and I am all about being a mystery man.

You have given me the wedding equivalent of a run-pass option. Do I want to unleash the animal within, drink the open bar out of mid-shelf liquor, hit on everything in a dress, charm people to death, set the dance floor on fire and barely remember leaving the venue? OR…do I want to take it nice and easy, have a couple of casual cocktails and politely leave after you cut the cake? I’m good with both and I am forever grateful that you gave me the option. I have the option to be the star of the show or a phantom behind the scenes who doesn’t even show up in the thousands of pictures from the evening. The only evidence of my attendance will be an elegant note in the guest book that serves more as an alibi than it does a genuine congratulations. I’ve listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that I might just need one of those at some point down the road.

You stuffing me in a corner behind the main table like a decorative rubber plant also gives me the opportunity to unironically declare our table “the fun table.” Sitting me at a table with a random assortment of parents’ friends, excess cousins and former roommates is the perfect opportunity to bring people together. You are never going to see them again in your life and it’s the perfect opportunity to hone your small talk or maybe see if one of them has a recently single niece. Make the most out of the opportunity. You’re isolated and your party’s common bond is the fact that you are outcasts, a band of misfits. Embrace it.

So, keep sticking me out of your line of sight. I’m here for you and I am grateful for the invite. While I appreciate the elegance and prestige of being a groomsman or close family relative of the bridal party, I also appreciate a good low-key buzz and zero pressure environment where I am allowed to thrive, or simply fade into the background while you enjoy the best night of your life.

Cheers. .

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Brian McGannon

What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.

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