F-Word Friday: Famous Friends and Family

Last week we talked about the tuxedo, and I alluded to the seersucker suit I plan on wearing on the big day. Which is what I had planned on talking about today. That and what the groomsmen are wearing, since we just decided that. It’s going to be a stone khaki suit with a big check gingham-ish blue and white shirt, and a solid linen navy tie with a red pocket square with white dots. They’re going to look goooood.

Which brings us to today’s revised topic: the groomsmen. This is particularly relevant since next weekend is the bachelor party, but also because it allows us to examine a common wedding stereotype. You know how everyone says that the goal of every wedding guest is to make sure you look good but not better than the bride? Well, the same is not true for the groom, which is fine. I assume most grooms get at least a little vain on their wedding day (and I’ll readily admit that my vanity began long before this wedding and will continue afterward), but no groom has any interest at all in upstaging our better half, and I’m no different. But here’s the thing: I have 4 groomsmen, and I run the risk of being the 5th best-looking guy in my own wedding party. I mean, that’s a little awkward, right? Not only that, but they’re all subtly different, so there’s something for just about everyone.

Without further ado…The Groomsmen:

The Brother-in-Law: Let’s kick things off with Maggie’s brother Lane. Classic southern male. Tall, rugged, loves to fish and hunt. Dead ringer for a young Harrison Ford. Has the big pickup truck that he looks born to drive (whereas I, in the same truck, look like Mike Dukakis driving a tank). Big accent. Talks. Real. Slow. Then says in 12 words what I had been trying to say for the last 12 minutes. Loves to drink with the boys, yet is always in the running for World’s Greatest Dad.

The Other Brother-in-Law: Or soon to be. Alex and I were teammates in college. Played the same position. He was an All-American, I was on the bench watching. He’s still playing professional hockey at 32, and has spent the last two years being the most popular foreign athlete in several small European countries. He has a bronze medal from the World Championships. He’s really funny and smart, and he’s impossibly good-looking. Seriously. Think Pierce Brosnan or Dermot Mulroney, only without the metrosexuality. True story: right after college, I was dating a girl in Boston who wasn’t Maggie. So we’re out at a bar with four of her friends, standing in a circle at the bar talking and waiting for some of my friends to come. So in walks Alex, whom these girls have never met. I wave so he can find us at the bar, and the girls turn and see him and go silent, except for some hyperventilating. Then one of them turns to me and says “Wait, you actually know him?!” Oh, and three years ago he started dating my younger sister. They’re getting married next year.

The Rabbi: Travis = not an actual rabbi. Not even Jewish. Not so much religious at all, as far as I know. But “Rabbi” is the term Wall Street uses for mentor, and it fits here perfectly. He’s only four years older than I am but he’s twice as good as I am at the same job, and he casually refers to himself as my Yoda, since every prediction he’s made about my life since the day we met has come true. For example, he told me I’d become nearsighted staring at trading screens all day, and I bragged about my 20-15 vision. Eventually, I had to ask his advice on local lasik surgeons. And after he met Maggie for the first time, he told me I’d be engaged in 9 months. I laughed him right out of the room, and eight months later asked for the phone number to his diamond guy. And if that’s not bad enough, he looks exactly like David Beckham. I mean exactly, right down to the four-too-many tattoos that look dumb on everyone else and uncomfortably cool on him. And he coaches his four-year-old daughter’s soccer team.

The Dean: My father, the Best Man. If I had a dollar for every time a woman met my father and then said to me some variation of “well I certainly see where you get your charm,” I could buy America out of recession. We are alike in almost every way, except he’s older, more seasoned, and has a better tan. Plus, he’s a much MUCH better writer. Not only is he coming to the bachelor party, but I guarantee my friends are more excited to see him than to see me. He’s like the love child of a pre-shotgun Ernest Hemingway and The World’s Most Interesting Man from those Dos Equis commercials.

So there you have it. I couldn’t ask for a better group, even if I’m way over my head standing next to them.

And don’t even get me started on our Master of Ceremonies…