The McMarriage

Well, here comes springtime: time for young lovers to plan their big, badass, expensive weddings. Naturally, I have advice: Don’t you do it! Blow off your over-priced, over-produced, big, badass wedding plans before it’s too late. Yes, I know, many of you ladies have been dreaming your whole life about walking down that aisle. But, trust me, the dream is a lie.

Your wedding will not live up to your fantasy, and the reality is depressing. The average American betrothal costs between $20,000 and $30,000 and will take about five years to repay. And the worst part: It all goes by in a flash. After years of planning, thousands of dollars flushed and all the heartache that typically accompanies preparation, the wedding will end before you barely realize it started.

Kids, please, I beg of you, do not have a traditional ceremony—if not for yourselves, then for us, your guests, because traditional weddings suck giant, bloated, festering crackhead balls.

Lord knows I’d rather lie in a pit of carnivorous razor beetles than have to watch another couple stare googey-eyed at each other while some cornball cleric solemnizes their union with all that spooky language about soul-merging with The Spirit, after which he pretends to be an authority on marriage and lectures the couple on the importance of forgiveness, trust and fidelity, as if they needed Father Obvious to explain that resentment, suspicion and infidelity are bad things.

And just when you think it couldn’t get worse, the High Priest of Poppycock starts analogizing wedlock to world affairs.

“We live in a troubling world,” he’ll say, and then pontificate on such issues as torture, war, global warming, MTV and colony collapse disorder, then somehow try to bring it back around to why you shouldn’t argue over the toothpaste cap. Meanwhile, we’re shifting, squirming, dying for that moment when we can get our devastatingly sober faces to the reception, which, of course, will suck crackhead balls—a living nightmare of small talk, weak drinks and a castrated corporate musical group called Eunuch and the Prosthetic Testicles: "Playing All the Hits Previously Approved by the Bride’s Grandmother.”

Bah!

W. and I got married in Las Vegas on Nov. 27, 2004, at the Special Memory Wedding Chapel drive thru. We call it The McMarriage.

We invited 25 friends, who met us at the hotel on Friday night for our separate bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Then, on Saturday, at 3 p.m., everybody piled into a fully stocked Hummer limousine and drove to the chapel’s drive-thru window, where we were eventually greeted by the house reverend, known as “Da Rev,” who appeared in the window wearing gold chains and slicked-back hair. We know he was called Da Rev because his name plaque said so.

Also, I could see his car. It was a pimped-out two-toned Caddy with tinted windows, custom paint, chrome wheels and a vanity plate that read: “Da Rev.”

While everyone in the limo was hooting and hollering, Da Rev pulled out two portable speakers, placed them on the sill and played “The Wedding March.” Then he gave a blissfully short sermon (all the time flirting with W. and staring at her cleavage) and pronounced us man and wife.

After the ceremony, we went for a joyride. We’d procured the limo for three hours, so the plan was to cruise, drink, stop at bars, do shots, then resume cruising.

This was the reception. No need to rent a banquet hall. No need to purchase expensive centerpieces. No need to hire a cheesy wedding band. I just inserted the CD I had prepared called “The Las Vegas Wedding Hummer Limo Mix,” and off we went.

The first song, for obvious reasons, was AC/DC’s, “For Those About to Rock we Salute You.” Next was an homage to my bride, Devo’s “Girl U Want,” followed by The Darkness’ “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” and Springsteen’s gorgeous “Let’s be Friends.”

I know this because I’m listening to it now.

Next came Public Enemy’s “By the Time I get to Arizona” (to get us rocking again), followed by “I Got a Man” from Positive K, then another tip of the hat to my wife with AC/DC’s “She’s got Balls,” which, if you knew W., you would know that her balls are not crackhead balls but, rather, the kind of balls every woman with balls should have: attitude balls!

“She’s got style that woman / Makes me smile that woman / She’s got spunk that woman / Funk, that woman / But most important of all / My lady’s got balls!”

It was fantastic. Everybody was rocking. Often, after stopping at a bar to take shots and then wobbling back to the Hummer, I played “Crazy Train.”

“All Aboard!” shouted Ozzy as the congregation piled in. Then that guitar riff splattered the walls of the limo, and off we went again.

When our joyride was over, we hit the casinos, gambled, drank, laughed, cussed and had an all-out amazing time through Sunday night. Total cost: less than $3,000, honeymoon included.

Not to toot our flute, but it was the best wedding I had ever attended. Our guests said the same thing. To this day, they still ask when we’re going to do it again—the answer to which is Nov. 27, 2014, our 10th anniversary. We’ll renew our vows, which means: Las Vegas, Hummer, Special Memory Wedding Chapel and even the same Vegas Wedding Limo mix. Save the date. You’re invited!

Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com. For a happy ending, visit www.edwindecker.com.