I love weddings.
Always have.
The music, the dancing, the laughter, the love. Some of life's best offerings bundled into a once-in-a-lifetime celebration. Sometimes twice-in-a-lifetime. The more, the merrier.
In middle school and high school, I danced and ate my way through every wedding I was invited to. In my second year of college, I decided to start dancing my way into some weddings I was not invited to.
Here is how to increase your odds of success when wedding crashing. Not that you would ever do such a thing.
Caution: this habit does not age well. All it takes is one angry bride and you will be forced into retirement.
Do
Be within driving distance of a popular wedding destination. I lived on the Central Coast of California in college, which is a world-renowned region for both weddings and wine: the ultimate marriage.
Make friends with local wedding planners and wedding vendors. Makeup artists, chefs, hairdressers, and DJs work well. Often, they will accidentally give you the date and time of big weddings that are bound to be a wild time.
Keep your Saturday mornings open. Then drive by major wedding venues: vineyards, outdoor churches, botanical gardens. Stop and park when you see rustic signs painted with "Ashley & Steven" or "Mary & Jo" surrounded by white and complementary-color balloons. Suit up.
Keep a clean wedding-appropriate outfit hanging in the back of your car at all times. I chose a three-piece suit, a black shirt and a white shirt, one pair of brown suede shoes, suspenders, a belt, a bow tie, a regular necktie, a small bottle of cologne, and a vest. Pro tip: always wear the vest. If there is spillage on the dance floor, you can toss the vest fast and lose only a chorus.
Use the photo booth.
Say you are "just another bartender" if the wedding has fifty people or fewer. Note: this does not work at Mormon weddings.
Always bring a gift. Classics include a bakeware set, a meat thermometer, or a nice bottle of wine. Costco is great for bulk discounts on award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon.
Bring your own alcohol in a flask. If it is a smaller wedding, their alcohol budget has been stretched. Be respectful and BYOB.
Be a distributor of dance moves and tequila shots. Pro tip: if you cannot dance, just do all the moves from your latest fitness class. Warrior 1 looks surprisingly cool when done to the beat.
Drink in the magical moments: when the groom sees his bride walk down the aisle, when the couple exchanges vows, when the mother-son or father-daughter dance begins.
Watch for less stereotypical moments too: when the wait staff start to do shots, when the kids sprint off the dance floor to avoid the big kids stumbling on, and when Uncle Ted finishes his fifth piece of cake and tries to stand.
Prioritize attending weddings of middle-aged couples. The guests are older, the cares are lighter, and the dance floor is drunk-Zumba-class wild.
Know when to bid your adieu. It will be sometime after everyone has finished their cake and before the DJ says, "last song." Use your discretion.
Don't
Do not get completely hammered, but do know all the lyrics to "U Can't Touch This."
Do not out-dance the bride.
Do not miss the ceremony and then crash the reception. People notice the bow-tied anomaly.
Do not be an energy vampire. Do not walk into a party and let it become less fun.
Do not believe everything you see in Wedding Crashers.
Do not crash weddings where the groom is a U.S. Navy SEAL. His groomsmen do not play.
Do not rush blindly into a country wedding's bathrooms. The men's restroom is often just a horse trough with a Purell dispenser. The ground is often mud. You are one shake away from dirt disaster.
The Rule
Like any good list of dos and don'ts, do more than you don't.
Bask in the beauty that is love expressed in its many forms: between newlyweds, from parent to child, from sister to brother, and from family to family.
Lastly, always remember the first rule of wedding crashing:
Add value.
An uninvited party pooper is despicable. A moonwalking DJ assistant is delightful.
To talking less and dancing more,
Lucas