guest blogger: the icing on the cake (and just before the cake, and again just after the cake)

Happy Monday folks. I've been waiting for Shawn to return from his many months of living abroad (and years of successfully putting off actually working a job) to guestblog. Enjoy!


When HMOH initially asked me to guestblog, I knew instantly what the topic of my post would be. At the time, I’d attended my fair share of weddings, but I’d only served as a groomsman in one. Despite this limited experience, I thought I’d gleaned just about enough to weigh in on the significant differences between being a groomsman and a bridesmaid: being a groomsman is great; being a bridesmaid sucks. I was fairly confident that I could defend this position. It seemed like, at any given point during the wedding or pre-wedding process ... no matter what the circumstances ... the groomsmen were doing something awesome, while the bridesmaids were getting shafted (and not even by the groomsmen). More importantly, the expectation was that the groomsmen basically just hang out and have a good time, while the bridesmaids triage whatever shitstorm Bridezilla kicked up in the hours leading up to the vows. Let’s take a quick glance at a few key metrics:


Hair/Makeup: Guess who’s not wearing any makeup to this wedding? Something like 80% of all groomsmen go completely makeup free at weddings. What about hair? While those bridesmaids are getting up at 5am to get their hair curled, pressed, straightened, and dyed orange to match their bridesmaid dress, we’re allowed (even encouraged) to show up with casually messy hair. Unless you’ve invited Bradley Cooper to your wedding (and there’ll be a whole additional blog post about the dangers of inviting Bradley Cooper to your wedding), groomsmen will spend a combined three-minutes getting that hair in place. I have the pleasure of having a few balding friends, so usually we can get this hair preparation time down to well below two-minutes.


Attire: While you girls are stuck with some a olive-colored bridesmaid gown that you’ll desperately try to sell on Half.com, we groomsmen bought a classic black tuxedo in 1992 and have never looked back. In addition, every time I show up at one of these weddings I’m given a pretty cool looking skinny tie that I can reuse every Halloween for my Donald Draper costume.


Toasts and Sentimentality (generally): So here I think groomsmen score big on the absence of any need to recite poetry. Generally, a groomsman’s (and more often, the best man’s) toast is an exercise in roasting the groom. What’s important to note: This is what we’d be doing on any other weekend night, regardless. Now we get to do it with an open bar. Making fun of all the groom’s stupid decisions for the past 10 years is exactly how we ended up as groomsmen to begin with. The bridesmaids and maid-of-honor, by contrast, give some heartfelt talk about who taught the other to kiss boys back at Camp LetsCryALotta.


The Suspender Factor: So as a rule, I try to place myself in any situation where I can be required to wear suspenders. They’re the single most badass accessory you can be asked to wear during a wedding. Suspender opportunities really boil down to weddings, clown auditions, and Halloween. Clown auditions and Halloween are overrun with girls wearing suspenders, but weddings are the last bastion of male, suspender-wearing privilege. There’s really no way for girls to compete on this front.


Then there are the apparent (or not so apparent) groomsman vs. bridesmaid face-offs one can address:

1. the difficulties of peeing in a ridiculous bridesmaid dress;
2. the likelihood that the bridesmaids will be 24 and single, while the groomsmen will be 27 and bald;
3. the reality that during any bridesmaid-required activities, it’s simply the groomsmen’s job to be playing golf.

So that’s normally where I would’ve let this debate rest. The groomsmen, I thought, really had a sweet setup. Then I learned about “Icing,” the drinking game that requires participants to chug a full Smirnoff Ice. Up until about a month ago, Icing was an unfamiliar practice to me. I had spent the majority of the last year living overseas and so I'd missed the American phenomenon ... and apparently made myself a target of the wedding weekend festivities last week. The possibility that, at any point during my otherwise leisurely groomsmen weekend, I might be called upon to take a knee and chug a sour apple-flavored malt beverage in front of the bride’s great-aunt Gertrude just really erodes some of the groomsmen’s edge in bridesmaid vs. groomsmen debate. And so it began:


Rehearsal Dinner - The rehearsal dinner is where we practice the drinking and groom-roasting that’s going to take place the following day. It’s also where we get our kick-ass skinny ties. It's a place to feel free to roam without concern that you might be ambushed with some raspberry-flavored excuse for a drink. I was approached by a waitress who had been serving pigs-in-blankets. We all know if there’s one reason to go to a wedding, it’s the possibility of little pigs-in-blankets. Pig-in-Blanket Waitress came closer only to present me with a Smirnoff Ice. Not only was I denied my pig-in-blanket; I was forced to drink it down. At the cheesesteak station, rather than the “whiz with” that I had ordered, I received a Smirnoff Ice cleverly placed in a bun. Again, I took a knee and washed down my bun with 12 ounces of sour apple.


So maybe the rehearsal dinner is fair game. It’s the casual precursor to the more formal and more important wedding reception. How much is really riding on the rehearsal dinner? But the same social decorum governed the wedding reception.


Wedding Day - Five minutes after the bride and groom said their “I dos,” the bridal party rushed to a back room so that the groomsmen could change into black, high-top Converse sneakers. What did I find waiting for me in my Converse shoe-box? Another Smirnoff Ice. Sitting on my chair after that first dance with the bride and groom? Smirnoff Ice. Suddenly, no corner of the ballroom was safe. Going to the bathroom seemed off-limits; there was bound to be one waiting for me there. Requesting a song from the band? No chance ... I’m sure the lead guitarists’ case was filled with them.


After party - The post-wedding party took place at a bar where outside beverages are prohibited. I’m sitting at a table with a few other wedding guests, and I lean over to tie my shoe. Of course...somehow...next to my foot...under the table, a warm Smirnoff Ice is waiting for me. It was right around this time that I called it quits.


In 48 hours, I’d been Iced six times.  The wedding weekend was no longer a place a groomsman could safely enjoy the perks of disheveled hair, unsentimental toasts, and suspenders. A place where the Smirnoff Ice was off limits to all but...the bridemaids. As certain as I am that the bride’s grandmother was carrying a Smirnoff Ice in her pocketbook (in case I came over to dance with her), I’m certain that the Icing phenomenon was orchestrated by a group of bridesmaids with deep ties to the PR and advertising world.

And if we're going to stop, collaborate and listen: despite minutes wasted guzzling an awful liquid, I got to put another 'groomsman' notch in my suspenders.


- ice ice baby