Imagine having to wade through all of the Jennifers in town to find the one you are looking for.

I don't have to! In my dad's hometown, with a dominant immigrant swede population, our lastname? Took up half the phone book. I'm not kidding.

My grandma's next door neighbor for the last 20 years of her life had the same fname lname as my dad. Only one (out of 2) middle initials was different. Oh yeah, and he and my dad were in school together. Along with 3 others sharing their same fname lname. Which is why I curse the uncreative swedes way back when. And maybe in the 40s.

Three weeks?! They're getting two. And they'll be glad of it, or I may decide it needs to be effective immediately.

Two is fine. In fact, I think it's standard. I wouldn't do less than two if I could help it.

I only mentioned the three because my mother was in Human Resources, and that's what she always recommended. I know that in part, dh got his job, because when the interviewer asked him when he could start, he said he'd like to give his then-current employer three weeks, if at all possible. They told him after that helped sell them on him, because it showed loyalty.

I'll just say that it was convenient that we got married in the sitting room of the inn that our room was in. And that is all.

At a wedding I was at a few years ago, we had been talking about the no-sex thing beforehand, and so we all got to witness the moment when the new bride said, "Yeah, no. Not happening tonight." (She was ready to go to bed, he was ready to hang out with his family for another couple of hours.) Not that we followed up with her after.

Or, "Hey! I do know how to quit you!"

I really like this.

I think the making out thing is catching.

Statistically, a couple won't go have a rollicking time in bed, after the wedding?

Yeah, I've heard that, too. By the end of the reception, people are tired/drunk/cranky from deal with families/whatever.

I know at least 2 couples that had a quicky in the limo on the way to the reception, just in case this happened.

Also?

Allyson you can have an omelette with peppers and onions.

As someone who would kill anyone standing between me and the consumption of cheese, you are SO SO missing the point...

I know at least 2 couples that had a quicky in the limo on the way to the reception, just in case this happened.

Hee!

Even worse than the garter toss itself -- when he who catches the garter has to put it on she who catches the bouquet. IOW, follow up "The groom is removing the bride's underwear," which at least has the feeble justification that they're married to each other, with "And now a man is putting underwear on a woman who may be a complete stranger."

Though I did see one wedding where it was handled -- well, not tastefully, because that's not possible -- but not as bad as it could have been. The girlfriend of the bride's brother caught the bouquet. Only two other men got on the floor for the garter throw, and for all the competition brother got, groom might as well just have handed him the garter.

When my grandpa came over from Sweden back in 1921, he decided to keep the spelling of the last name Astrom (except for taking away the two dots above the "o"), but changed the pronunciation to something he thought would be easier for Americans to say ("AH-strohm"). He didn't figure on the first syllable being mangled ("ASS-struhm") because he thought that A=AH in English as well as Romance languages. His uncle (who came over a few years earlier) knew differently, so he changed his spelling and pronounciation to Ostrom.

I'm thinking that their hometown was on a riverbank, because "strom" (with the two dots over the o) means "swift-running water," so when last names were acquired in the 19th century, their family apparently decided to use the river/stream for their name.

I just dislike how it smacks of "Catch the bouquet and YOU WIN!!! Your grand prize for elbowing the other single women in the face to catch the flowers? A HUSBAND!!!!"

I was at a wedding once where the bride did the bouquet toss. A space wide enough to drive a humvee through opened along its trajectory. One of the guys swore he could hear, "Not until I finish grad school!" going through every woman's mind at that moment.