My First Sober Wedding

It took until I was 42.5 to do this (well, minus the ones when I was a kid).

I don’t know my exact wedding count, but it’s probably north of 40 by now — including two where I was the groom. I’ve been to a few random ones where I am not sure why I was invited. I went to 1–2 as a kid. I’ve been in a few. I’ve gotten the mic two or three times. But yea, the number is probably around 40–45, I’d guess. That averages to maybe one per year throughout my currently meager existence. That’s a lot of fake laughs, cake pictures, and dancing to “All of the Lights” and “Shout.”

I went to a wedding Friday night, which again, was probably around Number 44 or some such. Minus the 1–2 as a kid, this was my first sober wedding in my life. It was thus different, but honestly in a lot of ways it was better. The wedding was loud, as weddings tend to be, and so I cannot come on here and say I had profound and emotionally-driven conversations with people I just met, because in many cases I couldn’t hear them. I did meet a bartender at the wedding who herself was in recovery, and she asked me, as I ordered a ginger beer that looked enough like a margarita to avoid questioning lines, “It’s so funny and sad how people use these things as an excuse to get shitfaced.” Indeed. And I myself have done that 35 times.