Chris Grows the F#%! Up: Year of the Weddings: The Reunion

In 2010 I moved into a house with 3 girls I'd never met. I was in need of a new place to live in a hurry (and on the cheap). I answered an ad for a sublease, looked at the room, and moved in a week later. The room was tiny, with slanted walls that I was too tall to stand up straight in, no closet, and the ugliest green walls that I've ever seen in my life.

And it was the best place I ever lived.

Nikki, Amanda, and AJ quickly became three of my closest friends, likely because we probably all have the same mental disorder that causes absolute ridiculousness anytime we're around each other.

When I found out that Amanda was engaged I was of course thrilled for her, but I was equally excited for a Roomie Reunion of epic proportions. I was also excited to have an excuse to try to get back into more of a visually pleasing shape. I was absolutely, no excuses, definitely going to start eating better and exercising so I could look hot for this wedding.

Until I discovered how inexpensive super giant candy bars are.

I'd gotten really good at preparing meals ahead of time and not just buying pizza rolls and mini tacos anytime I was hungry...until about a few weeks before the wedding. Guys, I fell off the wagon, and I fell hard. We're talking frozen pizzas, various off brand cheese flavored snacks, ice cream, so. much. wine, and enough chocolate to feed a thousand menstruating women at a Cathy convention (ACK!).

It all came to a head when I looked in the mirror a few days before the wedding.

Wearing black is the same as losing weight, right?

Better luck next wedding. It was too late to do anything about it, so I ate a bag of Cheetos and moved onto my next crisis. I'd received a text message the week of the wedding from the bride advising me that there wouldn't be a bar at the wedding, and they'd only be serving keg beer.

My first reaction was, of course, panic. After I got over the initial shock though, my second reaction was concern. Not so much concern over the lack of booze (I'll strap flasks wherever needed to have vodka at a wedding), but concern over the fact that apparently I've now become the type of person that needs a warning from the bride herself the week of her wedding to alert me to the alcohol situation.

This isn't who I thought I'd be when I grew up.

The day of the wedding arrived, and I had a lot to do, so I woke up early...ish...okay, it was a bit later than I planned...I slept til 11:30. I ran around town frantically doing laundry, shopping for clothes to wear when the original outfit I'd planned on fell through, stopped for a doughnut when trying on clothes went rather less well than hoped, and bought liquor to fill my flask with. By 1:30, I was an hour and a half late, stuck behind a horse trailer going 40 mpg, and I'd forgotten to buy a gift.

Hope you liked your giftcard, guys!

I rolled into New Ulm with just enough time to change, and head to the church. It was a gorgeous ceremony. I was super impressed with how adorable the bridesmaids dresses were, the bride was stunning in her dress, she was rocking some seriously fabulous lime green faux alligator pumps (that I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of), the groom looked as dapper as I'd ever seen him, and best of all, they kept it short and sweet.

After a stop at the bar for a few drinks, we headed to the reception. I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived and I noticed that I'd made a contribution at the head table.

Regular readers may remember these as the gift I gave Amanda at her Bachelorette Party. I'm basically a wedding planner y'all.

Seriously...let's talk rates (I hope you like glitter).

Halfway through the night, I decided it was time to test out a suggestion I'd been given by a friend. She suggested adding Crystal Light to beer to make it taste better. She knew of people who did this at weddings (and didn't die of being disgusted). I'd brought some Strawberry Lemonade flavoring and was about to try it when I realized that if I added some vodka I basically had a Strip and Go Naked (recipe here).

It was horrible, and you shouldn't do it ever...but it did the trick.

10 O'clock Chris

11 O'clock Chris

I had a ton of fun during the entire reception, but especially that last hour. It was largely because that was then that I realized what power I had as the friend of the bride. I need only whisper the song I wanted to hear in her ear, and she'd get it done. I wish I had that kind of power at every bar I go to.

The end of the night came quickly. One second we're playing on the swingset, and then the next I'm being ushered into a strange car and taken away. I was fielding calls from friends trying to figure out where I was, whose car I'd gotten in to, and where we were going. I knew none of the answers, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped that I hadn't been abducted for real. Luckily we ended up at the bar.

Sober Chris is a bit more cautious when in small town bars, but Drunk Chris doesn't give a f#%! if an entire table of straight men are staring kind of aggressively at him while he shakes his ass to Miley Cyrus.

I wasn't too concerned. One of the groomsmen had developed an entirely platonic man crush on me and had wanted desperately to be my wing-man. I'm not 100% sure of the straight wing-manning rules, but I think that means he'd have to jump in and help if I got into a brawl. The gay rules of wing-manning are a bit different. I won't throw a punch for anyone, but I will not hesitate to start a bitchy text messaging campaign.

The night ended with the bride and groom stopping in our hotel room before they headed back to theirs. It was nice after a night filled with dancing, drinking, and tons of other people, to sit down and chat with my old roomies. It was probably the highlight of the night for me.

And not even just because I wasn't wearing pants anymore.