All Fall Weddings Should Be Scheduled Around Football
I'm a big wedding guy. I love weddings. Everything about them. You get dressed up, you eat, you drink, you dance, you see old friends, you make new ones, and you celebrate two people finding love. I've been to over 50 weddings, as both guest and part of the bridal party. I've even had the honor of officiating one (They'll let you do anything in Florida!)
I've been to all kinds of weddings from Halloween themed at the local Elk lodge to extravagant at the yacht club. No matter how different the weddings are, there is one common theme: If it's in the fall, people would rather be watching football. It doesn't matter if it's family, how nice the venue is, how good the food is, or if it's an open bar. If there is a football game on, people want to be somewhere not just watching the game, but where watching the game is the reason they are there. You can try to put the game on a TV at the reception bar, but that just becomes a cruel reminder to everyone of where they would rather be. Plus, it's hard to pay attention to the game while the father of the bride makes a half-hearted speech about his new son-in-law that most people can tell he's not really too thrilled about.
Inviting people to a Fall wedding is like inviting someone to an office party with Double Fudge AND Angela.
Listen, Fall weddings can still be great and I'll go almost anytime I'm invited, but no one likes choosing between football and a wedding. I have found one exception to the Fall wedding though and I gotta tell you, it should be the standard for all Fall weddings.
A college friend invited me to his wedding in North Carolina this October. (This will be my first gay wedding. Still waiting for my first Indian wedding) My immediate thought upon getting the invitation was "Great, so I have to travel AND I'm missing football". But Wait! This wedding is on Friday night. Traveling for a wedding sucks because the travel time is usually equal to the party time. A Friday wedding though means you have to take off Thursday too which means travel time stays the same, but you get a whole extra day of partying. That makes up for the travel. Now you just have to worry about where you're watching the game on Saturday. But Wait! The wedding is in Charlotte, just two and half hours away from Raleigh, which just so happens to be where FSU (3-0 Baby!) will be playing N.C. State the next day. The usual Fall wedding is traveling and missing a football game. This Fall wedding is just a real early pre-game for a road trip game. I can't wait!
The only way this could be a better is if they had the wedding at the tailgate before the game!