3.1: Your Job In Planning the Wedding

                                 "FESTUNG EUROPA"

So what exactly is your job in helping to pull things together here?

Are you like Eisenhower, sitting at the top of the Allied Forces chain of command in your custom underground bunker just off Piccadilly Circus at SHAEF HQ, issuing directives, receiving briefings, handling phone calls from the President and the Prime Minister and simply being "Mr. Necessary" for every phase of the operation and privy to it's innermost secrets and details?

Or perhaps you're more like a Patton or a Montgomery, a shrewd Theater of Operations Commander, tasked with overseeing a large area of responsibility and making sure it supports and meshes effortlessly with the machine-like efficiency of all other battle groups busily executing their part of preparations for the assault on Hitler's Festung Europa ("Fortress Europe")?

Heh… not even close.

Just like Operation Overlord, your "D-Day" will take them the better part of a year to wrestle into place. During that time, think of yourself more along the lines of the Private who is occasionally called up from a basement file room to help get Ike and the rest of the General Staff coffee.

Every once in a great while, when they're dead tired, overwhelmed and less-than-confident that they can pull this whole crazy thing off, someone might even turn to you and ask, "Well, what do you think?" At that moment, just remember one thing:

You're Not Paid To Think, Solider! And now's not the time to get an attack of honesty, either, Dogface. Simply smile and say, "I don't think anyone could do a better job than the one you're doing, sir.”

Your most important job in all of this is only to ask 'how high?' when she says it's time to jump up, haul your ass off the couch and carry those packages in from the car, regardless of whatever Speed Racer rerun happens to be on at the moment – even if it's one of the good ones with Racer X.

Because, after all, it's your wedding too, you know.

  

Don't think of yourself as 'a prop', either – even though your bride-to-be will undoubtedly want to accessorize and coordinate both you and your groomsmen with colors-found-nowhere-in-nature that no one in their right mind would want to be caught dead wearing, let alone on their wedding day, if for no other reason than to tangentially match all of you with all of her bridesmaids gown's, plus the bridal bouquet, her mother's dress, and the color scheme of the reception hall place settings.

Instead, feel free to think of yourself as “The Final Piece of the Puzzle.”

"So what exactly is going to happen?," you might ask in that worried voice your sister always teases you about. As Schubert, Tchaikovsky and Jay-Z will confirm, there are many variations on a theme. But unless you're running off to Vegas with Allura from the "Totally Nude All Star Strip" for a quickie wedding, the posts that follow outline it all for you in considerable detail. Whether or not you want to believe them is up to you.