I vote that you take none of your Dad's advice, but hire an escort for him on the night of your wedding to keep him distracted.

That's certainly my family's preferred way of coping, if my alcoholic father and brother are anything to go by.

It's a classic.

"Deploy the whores! Deploy the hooooooors!!!!"

Oh dear Steph. Sounds like you dealt with him admirably, fwiw. But I do hope he's less medicated at the actual wedding.

But I do hope he's less medicated at the actual wedding.

He's more or less fine when he's at his baseline level of medication, but I think when he's home and takes his evening meds (meaning, he knows he won't be behind the wheel of a car, thank god), he takes a higher amount, and it leaves him so stoned.

Chronic pain sucks, and I don't begrudge him his medication. I'm glad he has a doctor who is helping him to manage it. But the side effects are lousy.

One variant of the money dance has people pinning money to you. I would not want to trust drunken people with sharp objects, no matter how much money they have.

Yikes! So, a couple things I learned when engaged that caused me to blissfully elope:

• my parents and Tom's parents are both batshit insane and we could easily imagine multiple scenarios where they would, individually or in various factions, make us want to crawl in a hole and die throughout the process

• having a small wedding is very tricky. We were so unable to navigate the pitfalls of hurt feelings and social niceties that we decided that inviting NO ONE was the best solution.

• Jesus Christ, bridal showers and bachelorette parties. I just couldn't. Well, maybe the bachelorette party I could get behind.

• Do not try to tell people you aren't registered for gifts, regardless of the reason. They will be pissed and before you know it, angry mob.

Chronic pain sucks, and I don't begrudge him his medication.

You don't sound judgey at all, Steph. I hope I don't, and if I did I apologize. I'm with you on the need to treat chronic pain.

There is also a thing at some weddings where not only is the bouquet thrown to predict the next woman to get married, the bride wears a garter belt which she throws - the single guy who catches is the next man to get married. There is a whole long list of creepy wedding traditions you can feel free to ignore, though I did see one bride really really get into the "throwing the garter" thing.

I think the husband takes the garter off his bride, tosses it to all the single dudes, and the dude who catches it has to slide the garter onto the leg of the lucky lady who caught the bouquet.