Well, here it is. Wedding season again. Doesn’t it seem like we are spending an exorbitant amount of money on things with an over 50% fail rate? Not your wedding of course, OTHER people’s weddings. Anyway, it is that time again to dust off the tux and pray the fibers hold steady so your cummerbund doesn’t sling shot off of you and nail some old lady mid-matrimony.

Try on All Your Clothes

Seriously, you don’t want this to be you. My grandfather, “Big Daddy,” made this mistake before my parents’ wedding. He neglected to try on his rental and they had mistakenly given him a 30” waist pair of pants. Needless to say, Big Daddy could only get one leg into a pair of 30”-ers.

Those bastards at the dry cleaners shrunk all of my nice clothes oddly a few months after I had quit smoking. I thought about suing them, but who has the time? I realized last year that I was in desperate need of what I like to call a Fat Tux. So I set out to get one. I knew I was on the right track at Jos. A Bank when the salesman said, “I think we have some more fabric in the back.” Good, Charlie, and throw in 40 neckties and 30 shoehorns, isn’t that the deal you have going this week? Wrap it up. Fat Tux took me about a month to procure (killed two haberdashers in the process). But, I have yet to wear it in its entirety because I’m a moron, as you will see.

Tuxedos are stupid things invented by jealous women who thought men needed complicated clothes to wear too. So complicated in fact that men needed a gentleman’s gentleman to help the poor pompous fop put the thing on every evening. Well, we’ve lost the fop’s man, but the annoying garment still remains. When it came time for me to put on the Fat Tux, I got all the way to the end and then screwed up. I was so happy to have all the other junk on that I blindly reached into my closet and pulled out what I thought was my Fat Tux jacket but was instead a damn Fat Blue Blazer. Then I shuffled off to the wedding in the only tux jacket on earth that had giant brass buttons on the sleeves. I went to the wedding with my parents and they didn’t even notice my mistake until it was too late to change. My mother could spot a missing thread in 300 thread-count sheets but she missed the brass buttons gleaming on my Fat Blue Blazer Tux. So Try on all your crap and look in the mirror before you go.

Print the Dress Code on the Invitation, Please

At Downton Abbey, if one comes to dinner in his whites instead of his blacks for a 5:30 seating, what a fool he will look. Yuck. That time is long since gone, thank goodness, but some of its dumb traditions remain. I had to Google the dress for an upcoming wedding because I’m a guy. It said, “for a 5:30 wedding where the invitation isn’t engraved the dress is…” and then I lost interest and I’m wearing Fat Tux. Please, I’m begging, please put the dress code on the invitations if you are going to invite schmucks like me. I was invited to a very formal, very nice engagement party a while back and was disastrously underdressed because the invitation said nothing. They assumed everyone just knew. Well, they assumed wrong because ole Chunky here dresses for comfort unless otherwise instructed. Needless to say, I was getting that Downton Abbey stink-eye all night, which is more a reflection of those snob losers and not my ignorant knowledge of hidden invitation secret messages. “The paper is two-ply cardboard you must wear leather shoes!” Ok, Illuminati, spell it out next time.

Dress Shoes Stink

Shoes designed for looks and not comfort should be outlawed. I’m so tired of women complaining that their feet hurt in shoes they bought and wore voluntarily. That’s a “you” problem and you are getting what you deserve. And, by the way, the solution to this is not to take them off and walk around barefooted. The only people who notice your shoes are other women, so at the next meeting hash this out and stop complaining. Like the tux, women designed men’s dress shoes to be uncomfortable because they are jealous. I’m pretty sure they are designed to completely cut off circulation so your feet come right off with the shoes because they are impossible to take off otherwise. Some padding and arch support won’t kill the mood. In fact, it will improve it.

More Advice from a Reluctant Wedding Goer

I’m very flattered that you’ve invited me, now can I have a regular beer? Having expensive craft beer junk as the only option at your wedding is going to piss off the common schlub like me. It’s not going to kill you to offer a Coors light. You can even ridicule my taste in beer as I drink it; I don’t care as long as I can satisfy it.

Eat some food, alchie. This is more of a personal note. I hate eating food at parties. Stupid, I know, but I don’t need the world watching while I shove 20 pigs-in-a-blanket into a pig-in-a-tux. But, you must eat to avoid making the drunken spectacle of yourself, so do it early. Cram some kreplachs down your gullet as soon as you get there so you can enjoy the entire party upright.

Don’t be the “band buddy.” The band or DJ is there to work, not be your friend. Stop bothering them. They don’t want you on stage, they don’t need your requests and the bass man knows he’s good without your compliments. You can’t dance, either, so stop doing that too.

Since I’m a man, I’m sure I am wrong about everything in this post. Please feel free to correct me below. Cento Anni.