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

27 Tuxedos, "The Prequel"

I have known HMOH for quite some time – we’ve combined our last names, named our firstborn, created many a stir on a dance floor, and bonded over the fact that between the two of us, we’ve serviced a boatload of nuptials.  It’s why my sister deemed me “27 Tuxedos” and why I agreed to be a frequent voice on this site.  It’s an honor and a pleasure to be joining my homie HMOH for a little “he said, she said.”  I’m hoping to bring you an entertaining, insightful and relevant male opinion on many similar topics to those that you’ve come to know and love on this site. 

For my first foray into the blogosphere, I thought it would be appropriate to build upon that lovely introduction I was given a few days back, and discuss the genesis of how I got my street cred in the wacky world of weddings.  Much like The Godfather 2, Batman Begins, and Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, I figured any great story needs a prequel to explain the roots of its beginning. 

For me it all started in 2006, when I was asked to be a groomsman for the first time.  I barely knew what being a groomsman entailed at this point (escort a hot bridesmaid down the aisle (and maybe home), right?), let alone had any clue what responsibilities came with the job.  Nonetheless, I accepted his offer since a) it sounded like an honor, and b) my ego generally pushes me to accept any/all titles, responsibilities, and acknowledgments of excellence. 

From my acceptance to be a groomsman through the wedding weekend, I would get a quick boot camp style education in what this whole wedding process actually meant for anyone that wasn't the bride or groom.  I’ll break it down for you like this:

ENGAGEMENT PARTY

Attending the engagement party required me to buy a pointless gift off of a ridiculous registry, and then actually show up at the event. As I will detail further at a later date, I picked the most absurd items on the registry to give the couple - a meat cleaver and sausage stuffer.  Yes, those items were actually on the registry (hey, you ask and you shall receive).  At the party I was passed off from Aunt to Aunt, each who somehow knew me (I didn’t know any of them), who wanted to set me up with their daughter and/or daughter’s best friend.

BACHELOR PARTY

For the bachelor party – or last stand at being a free man – I had to travel to a foreign, French-speaking country you may know as Canada, and dropped hundreds of dollars on a Bachelor who wouldn’t even accept a lap dance at an all-nude strip club.  For the females, all-nude strip clubs are banned in almost all places/countries, hence why they are referred to as the “Holy Grail” and the reason many bachelor parties (or frat boys) will cross the border.  


Dinner was a reasonable (sarcasm) $250.  The party organizer, or shall we say scam artist, managed to scheme us into paying out of the group fund for his personal appetizer - a $150 seafood platter - and two expensive Cuban cigars for him.  My Petit Filet Mignon, side of mashed potatoes and two Captain and Cokes were certainly worth the two-fifty. 

WEDDING WEEKEND

Weeks after my cross-the-border bachelor party duties, the wedding weekend was upon us.  It began on Friday with the rehearsal dinner, but not before a traditional wedding run through beforehand.  Thankfully, for what would be the only time in my "27 Tuxedos" career to date, I was not responsible for giving a speech (they clearly didn’t appreciate my full potential). Instead, the evening involved me imbibing massive amounts of alcohol, more-so pondering who actually gets married at 25 years-old, and wondering why there were no cute and/or single women at this event. 

Saturday was the big day. For an 8:00 p.m. ceremony start time, I was asked to arrive at 3:30 p.m. (leaving a Mets/Yankees game early in the process) because we had to take pictures.  I learned that “taking pictures” involves the groomsmen sitting in a room with nothing to do for nearly four hours except for watching the Latino waitstaff laugh as I failed on the first six attempts to get my cufflinks on properly.

SIDENOTE: I was forced to stop at Men’s Warehouse on my way to the wedding reception to purchase a new tuxedo shirt (apparently the one I owned was not made to be worn with studs).   Why do studs exist and what dude makes his friends wear them?  I was also required to wear a cummerbund.  When I had gone to pick one up – the owner first laughed in my face and then told me I was the only person under the age of forty to ask for one in the last five years.

I got my first taste of “cupping an elbow” when the ceremony finally began and I did my strut down the aisle (I’ve perfected it at this point and can make any bridesmaid squeal at the professionalism of my elbow cup).  I partied the rest of the evening with not a care in the world- probably because I was extremely intoxicated because the cocktail hour was full of foods I don’t eat (shellfish, veggies, caviar).  I passed out that evening happy that my time of service to the Groom had finally ended …  at least what I thought was over until I got a wake-up call from another groomsman to head the Wedding Brunch together.  The early a.m. brunch was a trek across Manhattan and the reason I never wanted to see another wedding again for years.  

When all was said and done, my first go-round as a groomsman had done significant damage to both my bank account and my precious free time.  The final tally read something like this.  Seven days of my life gone to wedding-centric activities and around $1,500 of my hard-earned cash spent on sausage stuffers, Canadian strippers, and an unappetizing cocktail hour.  As a 25-year-old, it was extremely difficult to process with nothing to show for it.

AND HERE WE ARE …

Three years, 10+ weddings, three additional groomsman titles, one go as the Best Man, five bachelor parties, and thousands of dollars later, I’ve now become a wedding expert (potentially self-proclaimed).  For better or worse, I bare the scarlet letter that is “27 Tuxedos”. 

I have a crazy year ahead on the wedding circuit and look forward to sharing various stories, observations and anecdotes with you along the way. 

Any topics you want for me to impart my two sense on (I'm always up to offer my opinion), please email me here.

- 27 Tuxedos

introducing "27 Tuxedos"

Apologies ... I was a bit of a slacker last week.  Since I no longer have MOH duties, I guess you can say I've been off honeymooning (minus the diamond ring, husband, pampering and luxurious location).  


As a quick catch up:  It was a great weekend on Fire Island. It started with lying on the beach Friday and a call to my mother who is on vacation.  I told her I hoped I was doing exactly what she was doing.  She said "What? Making meatballs?"  


Fast forward to beach parties and dance parties, including but not limited to hula hooping on the dance floor.  Yesterday I enjoyed some quality time with my dad and little brothers.  In the spirit of thanking him for all he's given me - I wanted to acknowledge that I get some quality traits from the old man.  On our drive back into Manhattan I realized I inherited my "modesty" from Dad. He spent the two hour long trip stuck in traffic telling me how awesome he is.  


Today, Jay-Z and Eminem are currently setting up set on Letterman's roof next to my office building so I'll have an aerial view for the free concert later this afternoon.  I lost my voice, am still in need a full night's sleep, and if we're not asking too much here ... would like 24 hours with no responsibilities - this includes not having to feel responsible on behalf of the "tanning gifted" to wake up at 9 a.m. and be on the beach for optimal sunbathing time.  Sometimes I wish I didn't have olive skin and could accept being pale - I'd have less bags under my eyes.


Additionally, in the past few weeks two great couples (congrats Danielle/Jason and Charles/Sarah) have gotten engaged, taking my to-date total for 2011 wedding season to seven.  At least I know this blog isn't going anywhere any time soon.

In important news - I am psyched to announce that we have signed a frequent contributor to the HMOH to act as resident "Best Man".  Starting this week, 27 Tuxedos will serve as the male voice for this blog - providing tips and sarcasm alike about his experiences being a groomsman 27 too many times.  

He's hilarious and up for the challenge (though I'm not sure he is talented at scrapbooking).  When I asked him to share his bio so I could tell you readers why you need to hear from him - he shared the following creds:

• Best Man - 1x 
• Groomsman - 3x, three pending
• Four bachelor parties in eight weekends
• Three weddings this past May/June; three more in 2010
• Six to seven weddings invitations expected for May-July 2011
• Single

He's going to be an excellent addition, I know it ... mainly because I'm controlling and wouldn't have agreed to it unless I knew it'd be perfect.  Plus where would the MOH be without her Best Man?


Obviously guest bloggers are still encouraged and welcome, and if you have any questions or topics you want HMOH and/or 27 Tux to cover off on, please email them to us.


Bachelorette tonight. Nuff said.


-HMOH

guest blogger: 'for the guys' weddings take their toll

Q. HMOH,

I’m gonna be frank right off the bat: I don’t follow this blog too closely. It’s not that I don’t enjoy your sense of humor – I do, very much so – it’s just that I’m a heterosexual guy, I couldn’t care less about The Bachelorette, and I think "Wedding Date" is the worst movie ever made, right up there with Ishtar and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. With that said, I’m really excited you started your own blog, writing about a subject that you’re passionate about and making people laugh along the way (not an easy thing to do, at all). The reason I’m writing is because I need advice that only you, Handmaid of Honor, can provide. Also, I believe my story, which is 100% true, could greatly benefit others, both bachelors and bachelorettes alike (but mostly bachelors).

Some background. I’ve been dating (actually, I should say “I was dating,” but we’ll get there soon enough) a girl – let’s just call her the Callous Ice Queen Who Wears Way Too Much Makeup (or “CIQWWWTMM” for short) – for four months. Things got serious quickly and two months in she invited me to two of her friends’ weddings, both taking place in North Carolina at the end of May / beginning of June. (I think HMOH Tip #525 on Destination Weddings inspired her.) Thinking this girl was pretty much the cat’s pajamas in every conceivable way, I accepted. I then reciprocated and asked her to join me at my best friend’s California wedding in July. Although I hadn’t been extended a “plus one” invitation, I knew that if I asked my best friend in earnest, he would work with his wonderful fiancée to make it happen. Two weeks later I got the go-ahead and booked a second roundtrip ticket to the sunny west coast. We planned to spend a week out there.

Since the two NC weddings were on consecutive Saturdays, we decided to take off the week in between and vacation at the beautiful home of my best college buddy and his wife in Charleston, South Carolina. To save some money and give us some flexibility, we elected to take my car and drive the aggregate 1,600 miles. We equipped ourselves with her GPS, her E-ZPass® tag, and her iPod, which featured way too much Michael Bublé and not nearly enough AC/DC.

The first wedding went fine, although there were a few wrinkles that I should probably mention. For example, she didn’t seem to want to take any pictures with me whatsoever; she seemed uncomfortable – almost annoyed – when I touched her arm or tried to dance with her (which was silly, because I’m arguably one of the best around at twirling girls on the dance floor; ask anyone); and she stopped introducing me as her “boyfriend” and instead simply said, “This is _____.” without any further clarification. Oh yeah, there’s one other thing I should note: Two weeks earlier we (and when I say “we” I mean “she”) decided that we were going to break up in August because we were headed to different business schools located 700 miles apart. Yup, minor detail. We did agree, however, to keep our summer plans in tact and savor our remaining time together so that one day we would look back at the six months as something special and great. Foolishly, I thought she meant all of this. It seems I had forgotten that she was a woman.

When we got to Charleston, the eyeliner, as they say, hit the fan. Not only was she aloof around me, but she became increasingly rude and even hostile at times. When I confronted her (extremely diplomatically, I might add) about her behavior, it was clear we were headed for our official falling-out party. In short, she confessed that she no longer felt “connected” to me, nor did she have any “romantic passion” left for me. Having taken an intro psych class freshman year of college, I speculated that she was simply putting up “a wall” so that she wouldn’t be hurt when we inevitably broke up.  Whatever the reason, we ended our conversation with a lovely shouting match that ultimately woke up our hosts and their two gigantic British bulldogs, who began barking feverishly. I put on my old high school lacrosse shorts, grabbed my pillow and moved to the couch in their living room. I think I slept ten, maybe fifteen minutes.

The next day I tried to make the best of a bad situation – and salvage a vacation and summer I had spent months planning – by proposing a compromise that my Charleston buddy, who had been married two years, suggested to me: take the focus off the relationship-y stuff and just have fun together. Reluctantly, she agreed. It turns out she was much, much better at this whole acting like we were not in a relationship thing. I, on the other hand, was so angry / shocked / hurt that I became physically ill and spent the second night in a row not sleeping at all. Delirious, the next morning – our last one in Charleston – I made her take me to the emergency room so I could get some Ambien. What I expected to be a relatively quick and painless visit ended up being a six-hour ordeal, complete with me receiving an I.V., getting a CAT Scan, and learning that something was terribly “amiss” with my heartbeat, which had dropped to a very low 40 beats per minute. At 3pm, when the doctors concluded I wasn’t going to die, I was discharged, with powerful sleep medicine in hand. She picked me up in my car (she did not give me a hug) and we headed to Salisbury, NC, which was four hours north.

Thanks to the Ambien, I fell asleep Thursday night halfway through the Lakers-Celtics game. I woke up Friday morning feeling somewhat better but not great (e.g., when I turned my head my vision no longer lagged several seconds behind; however, I still cried often and uncontrollably). When I asked her what our plan was for the day, I was informed that she had an important brunch with “the girls” followed by manicures, pedicures, and other girl stuff that I didn’t care about. What was I to do with my time? Fortunately, Salisbury is the home to several gas stations, the soft drink Cheerwine, and the regional supermarket Food Lion. Needing to clear my mind, I headed down to the hotel lobby for a complimentary continental breakfast and to read a USA Today, which I discovered is written for retarded people. When I returned to the room, she interrupted her elaborate makeup-application ritual to give me a death stare I shall not soon forget. She then chewed me out for being “childish,” which would be the equivalent of her berating an Amish girl for wearing too much eyeshadow and blush. Continuing her tirade, she told me straight up she could no longer put up with me as I was becoming a threat to her enjoyment of her friend’s wedding, which was obviously the most important thing in the whole world given everything that had happened, not to mention the state of my health. My crime? Apparently, I had let our door close too hard on my way to the lobby. I disagreed, and after another lovely yelling match, I decided I that I had had enough of the CIQWWWTMM. In what I can only describe as something out of a movie, I packed my bags, loaded them onto a cart, and said, “I’m sorry this didn’t work out.” As I let the door close (too hard) behind me, I heard: “That’s it? You’re really leaving?”

I pulled my cart down the hallway and through the lobby, past the gaggle of her bubbly, Chardonnay-sipping friends, who were confused by the sight of me leaving with my bags. I loaded the car, cranked the radio – it was George Michael’s “Freedom,” I kid you not – and released the loudest, most primal, jubilant scream of my life. Twelve hours later, with the aid of her GPS and E-ZPass, I was back in New York, not quite sure if what just happened actually happened, or if it was simply the Ambien playing a cruel joke on my exhausted body and mind. I have no idea how she got home, but I bet (i.e. hope) it was an expensive plane ride.

HMOH, I had mentioned earlier that I needed your advice. Initially, when I started writing this last night, I didn’t know what to do about the California wedding. But the more I thought about – and the more I consulted good friends, who are invaluable in times like these – I realized it was a no-brainer: go out there by myself, have a blast, and try to take down a cute Californian bridesmaid (once she gets a taste of my superior twirl moves, she won’t be able to resist).

The question I have for you is more difficult. You see, since I’ve been home, which has been a mere three days, I’ve spent the vast majority of my time driving over every major toll bridge and through every major tunnel in the metropolitan area – using her E-ZPass to pay the fares. The Throgs Neck Bridge is my favorite, simply because it’s nearby and it’s really easy to pull a U-turn at the end and go back through in the other direction. However, various toll collectors, whose expertise I have solicited, have recommended I try the Verrazano Bridge because its toll is $11.00, double that of the Throgs Neck. The thing is, they only charge you if you’re headed westbound into Staten Island. 

So, finally, my question to you: What is the optimal way to run up the most exorbitant tab possible on her E-ZPass tag?

Look forward to hearing from you. Congratulations on the blog and best of luck!

Laate,

Scos 

A.  Dear Scos,

I'll tell you what I tell all my heartbroken friends ... she's a d-bag and very immature and doesn't deserve you anyways.  She's fat, ugly, a total biatch and wears WAY too much make-up (am I right, or am I right?).  Do you want me to punch her for you? Cut off her balls?

Make sure you look really hot in your next Facebook album and ask that your friends make the privacy settings "Friends of Friends" so she can see how much fun you're having without her.

As for the EZ-Pass and her pending debt - ever drive cross country?  Why not call your flights to your best friend's wedding a wash, and take to the roads and toll booths ... I'd imagine there are hundreds on your way to California.

Let's get drinks soon.

-HMOH