How to Be Irish

by David Slattery

  The mother of the bride-to-be may now advise her daughter that her friend’s daughter got through the whole thing on diazepam. No one noticed when she eventually collapsed towards midnight after her sixth Corona. Luckily, her friend’s daughter, now happily married, has a few bottles of pills left over after rehab. The mother should tell her daughter that she acquired this supply for just twenty euro because they are all friends. Those bottles and what she has herself in the bathroom cabinet should see the bride-to-be through the coming ordeal.

  Who is she going to sit beside whom at the dinner? What about her uncle with the speech impediment – who is she going to put beside him? Maybe she can tell Maura that she doesn’t have to buy her a present if she agrees to sit between her uncle and the deaf priest.

  Meanwhile, the groom-to-be should worry about who will win the All-Ireland this year.

  Typically, the bride-to-be should forget to order the ice-sculptures. A week after the wedding ceremony, her brother should discover a box of dead white doves in the boot of his car that he forgot to release at the church because he was actually in the pub. But it’s ‘No problemo’ for him because, by now, she should be on her honeymoon. Actually she is in hospital, in an exotic location though, with severe dehydration and sun burn. Her mother should persuade him that the bride’s nerves are not up to ever hearing about those poor birds – such a bad omen for the marriage. ‘What could have been on their poor little minds sitting in that box in the dark in that car for a week?’ she should wonder.

  The Rules of Making Excuses

  Who would willingly attend a wedding? Apart from the bride-to-be, her parents and just maybe the bridesmaids, no one likes to be invited to a wedding. It is probably on a Wednesday because the hotel is offering a midweek polished bronze deal for the happy couple. The only people who don’t need an excuse for not turning up are those getting married. Everyone else should have an excuse if they don’t intend to show. Ideally, you want an explanation that will allow the couple, if at all possible, to be on speaking terms with you after the wedding. Even though any excuse is unlikely to work, you should make your excuses as an initial tactic to get out of attending. For economy, you can bulk buy your pre-printed gold embossed Sorry I can’t attend your wedding because… cards. An excuse that has an above-average success rate is one that involves doing voluntary work with the needy. Insert the name of any group of really needy people, not including your mother and clingy mutual friends, in the appropriate space on your card. Alternatively, say you feel you might be developing a terminal illness. You may be dead by the time the happy event comes round. You shouldn’t overuse that excuse; ideally you should use it only once and than stay in hiding for the rest of your life. Or you could claim you have to go abroad on urgent business. This should not include holidays but can include accessing highly dangerous life-saving medical procedures and vital organ transplantation; it should not include cosmetic surgery. Say that you are on your way to jail for a five-year term for being caught in flagrante delicto in the local cemetery with a fresh corpse. Ideally, every family or group of friends should have a list of who went to what wedding. When you have fulfilled your agreed quota of onerous attendances, you can then nominate someone else to take your place and pretend to be you if necessary. But no matter what your excuse, say you will send a present even though you can’t attend yourself.

  Excuses that traditionally don’t work include claiming that it would cost too much to attend; claiming that you wouldn’t enjoy it (why single yourself out – you are not that special); claiming that you don’t really enjoy their company and now is as good a time as any to let them know; saying you couldn’t be bothered; or claiming you find weddings boring. Remember, you are Irish. Lie to your friends and family because you don’t want to upset them with the truth.

  The Rules of Giving Presents

  If by some miracle you have managed to offer a convincing excuse, you still have to send a present. Cash is good but it shows an unpatriotic unwillingness to avoid any of the traumas of buying a present. Cash is for those who are publicly indicating that they have chosen to drop out of society. The bride-to-be, in consultation with her mother, may decide on a wedding list from Brown Thomas. In this case, you should scramble to get online as fast as you can. Compete for the only four items under a hundred euro, which of course are already gone. Hopefully the bride-to-be may start to feel guilty after one of her relations phones her mother to tell her that she ‘can stick her wedding list because she is getting a Sacred Heart picture, same as everyone else.’ Following this intervention, the bride-to-be should instruct her mother to inform the guests in general that she is abandoning the idea of a prescribed present list. Ergo, she ends up with five toasters, four deep-fat fryers, two knife blocks, one Sacred Heart picture, three sets of pots, six sets of bed linen, twelve casserole dishes, two Fondue sets, one Le Creuset pot, two woks, four continental quilts, eight coffee pots – one with alarm clock – ten sets of towels, two linen table cloths, five wooden chopping blocks, three sets of knives, one silver canteen, twenty-three figurines, four paintings produced at home by economically inactive guests, one compilation CD, one compromising DVD, eleven thousand eight hundred and fifty-six euro in cash and two hundred and eighty-five euro in dud cheques. From this sum, the bride should spend six hundred and forty-four euro in the bar between 1.30 a.m. and 3.15 a.m. on her wedding night, violently insisting on buying everyone Fluffy Ducks and Boiler Makers.

  The Rules of Wedding Pictures

  One of the weightier metaphysical dilemmas facing any couple planning their wedding is whether they should record the day, if they must, with still photography or video, or both. This is both sociologically and psychologically interesting because the chosen media reveals a lot about the couple. Control freaks typically choose video because they want everyone to behave in an unnatural way to avoid embarrassment at the subsequent unavoidable wedding-video-viewing party. It is increasingly difficult to avoid seeing yourself in the video because it is usually available to download online. Before accepting an invitation, even to your own wedding, you should seek written guarantees that there will be neither amateur nor professional video evidence available after the event. It is not unreasonable for the couple to instruct the best man, assisted by a team of professional security staff, to frisk all guests at the church for any recording devices including mobile phones. Well-meaning couples will indicate this plan on the wedding invitation.

  Still photography is socially more attractive because it demonstrates both taste and empathy on the part of the couple. First, the formal photo shoot allows the plebeian guests to mingle in peace without the bride and groom, family members and other principals, who are obliged to stand outside in the rain, forming a variety of kinship combinations for posterity. Second, still photography allows you to do the same thing over and over again, which, ironically, can make the event go quicker. Professional still photographers have tireless patience. It is not uncommon to hear them say, ‘Oh. I missed that. Can you lean over there and smile again? That’s better. Thanks. I missed the cutting of the cake. Can you take that piece out of your mouth? Put it back in the cake and cut it again? This time can you try it while smiling? How about stuffing the slice into her mouth? Try her mouth this time instead of her eye. That’s great. Now if we can get the mothers in beside the cake. Okay. No problem. We can wait until she comes round. While we are waiting, I have an idea. Just prop her up there. You hold her arm over your shoulder like she is conscious. I have Pritt Stick I can use to keep her eyes open. Very handy. I find that’s the great thing about black and white film. You could be dead and no one would notice. Oh. She is dead. Well just lay her in that wonderful shadow over here. I won’t use the flash. That’s marvelous. Now, if this group could move over there, I could get the next group in. Can you take her with you? Not by the heels – you’ll ruin her fascinator. Roll her up in her pashmina. Flower girls in the front here. As I was saying just now, black and white film is wonderful. You
won’t see the vomit on that dress. Hold still everyone. Say cheese. You. Yes, that small fellow in the velveteen suit with the sweat – what is his name? Jason? Okay, Jason. Don’t smile until after you have seen an orthodontist and do it soon. Are we ready? Everyone else smile. Jason, stop crying. Say cheese!’

  The Rules for What Counts as a Disaster

  It is to be expected that most of the guests will be secretly hoping that something major will go wrong just to break the monotony. Despite the years of planning, things should go wrong. Knowing this, the father of the bride should be seen snorting crushed blood-pressure pills in the side aisle of the church.

  Any worthwhile wedding should have at least one disaster. Disasters at weddings are psychologically remarkable phenomena because, no matter what happens, the bride and groom will only be able to remember that they had a great time. In fact, it is always the best wedding they were ever at. One of the most likely places for it all to go wrong is during the after-dinner speeches when the principal orators are under the influence of nerves and alcohol. But disasters can happen before then. Some people think the flower girls crying or the page boys wandering off with the rings is a noteworthy disaster, but any event involving children can only be termed inconvenient rather than catastrophic. Animals are a different matter. There is no excuse for bringing animals to a wedding unless you really cannot leave them behind.

  A disaster survivor informed me that her pet cat, Bailey, became completely enmeshed in her elaborate veil and expensive hair-do when he excitedly leaped on to her head as she twirled the ensemble in front of the mirror at home, while preparing for the ceremony. Both Bailey and the bride-to-be became hysterical. They wove each other together in a ball of fur, lace and hair extensions. The bride-to-be’s father concluded that the only way to remove Bailey would be to kill him and remove a metre-wide disk of veil and all of the hair on one side of the bride’s head. But she loved Bailey too much and, besides, they would have to find a way of killing him that didn’t involve bloodshed. She was married while a bridesmaid held the struggling cat in place on her head. After the ceremony, the bride and Bailey went to the vet who performed a successful catectomy, having provided a full anaesthetic for Bailey and tranquilizers for the bride. After Bailey was freed, the bride managed to attend the photo-shoot while the unconscious Bailey was taken home. By standing sideways to the camera and half way behind trees, she managed to almost hide the scratch marks and uneven hair, which you would only notice in the wedding album ‘if you were really looking’.

  The groom should stand at the altar of the church nervously rehearsing the name of the bride-to-be over and over again, while constantly asking the best man if he still has the rings. When the priest eventually asks for the rings, the best man should search his pockets before remembering that Jason has them balanced on a velvet cushion. Jason, who is a page boy and has been slow-cooking in a dark blue velveteen suit that his mother insisted he wear – because he might catch his death from the drafts in the church – should wake from his dozing and wet his pants in panic. The guests can then start to believe that this day may turn out alright after all.

  It is surprising how relatively few brides or grooms fail to turn up for their weddings. But these days it is probably easier to go through a divorce than to work out what to do with the presents. At a wedding I attended recently, the best man made the unprecedented move of standing at the top of the church and asking for our attention. We all went silent in breathless anticipation of a possible major disaster. In our collective imagination, we were already down the pub gossiping about how ‘shocked’ we were that the bride didn’t show, going over in detail the little hints we didn’t see at the time – the on-again-off-again relationship; the ring throwing; your one from Donegal that everyone except the bride knew about. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have an important announcement,’ said the best man. We all looked around at each other, struggling to suppress our joy at being firsthand witnesses to a major scandal. ‘Can you please turn off your mobile phones during the ceremony?’ ‘Oh. Is that all?’ We reached for our phones in depression as the bride’s brother’s band started their acoustic version of Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ from Lohengrin to signal that the bride had actually shown up.

  At a wedding in the midlands, a large bride had herself sewn into her under-sized dress along the side seam under her arm. Both her and the extraordinary long train were carefully folded into the antique Rolls-Royce that was to take her to the church. Somewhere on the way, she had a violent argument with her father. When the car pulled up, she opened the door and ran straight into the church in a sulk. Her distracted and embarrassed father, rushing to catch up and be at least beside her as she galloped up the aisle, slammed the door on the end of her train. She was just inside the doors of the church and making good speed when the dress split and came off in one piece, leaving her standing there in her new lingerie with matching suspender belt and knickers. The guests were delighted that they had shown up for that wedding. Following the delay involved in sewing her back into the dress, the wedding proceeded as planned. And some brides complain that you can see the bridesmaid’s bra strap in the video when she is dancing with the best man.

  The Rules of Speech Making

  One of the most enjoyable weddings I was at was the one where the father of the bride selflessly had a heart attack during the soup course. The rest of the dinner was cancelled, along with the speeches. We were profoundly grateful.

  Tailor-made wedding speeches and tutorials are available to download from the internet for each of the participants who are obliged to address the unhappy guests as their digestive juices battle with the Wicklow venison or cauliflower curry. Speeches usually range from premium to platinum. You get what you pay for. I prefer to listen to platinum speeches in which you can clearly see where the extra investment has gone. Each of these speech tutorials come with a guide to what the speaker should and shouldn’t do. In terms of advisable length of speech, some websites suggest that you can allow seasoned speechifiers up to forty minutes’ speaking time. It is easy to imagine every speaker, drunk on the initial applause and alcohol, convincing themselves that they are the very best public speakers the unhappy guests may ever hear in their lives. With these tutorials, expect the speakers to drone on for hours.

  The Do’s of Public Speaking

  I will give you an anthropological summary of the professional advice available online, which I have localised to a specifically Irish wedding speech context. This advice falls under the headings of what you should do and what you should not do. You are advised to make a list of each with clear headings. That is fine advice when sober but confusing when not. Because weddings are definitely sentimental occasions, we are advised, if called upon to make a speech, to emphasise how important and special the bride and groom are to us. If you are the groom, you should be prepared to say how important the bride is to you, and vice versa. At an Irish wedding you should not take it for granted that your audience will have made this connection. If you are the father of the bride, you should tell your audience how happy you are to welcome a new member into your family. You should not say how particularly happy you are that it is actually the person sitting in front of you and not the rich, professionally qualified responsible one with whom you got on so well, but who dumped your daughter six months ago after he found her in bed with someone who is also not the peron sitting in front of you today. Apparently, professional speechwriters do not encourage jokes on that theme, even if they are true. On the other hand, neither are you encouraged to over-state your affection for your new son-in-law in your speech, because, by doing so, you may raise suspicions of insincerity on your part. Wedding guests are a tough crowd, especially while digesting Wicklow venison.

  We are also advised that looking confident is being confident. Therefore, while speaking, you should both smile and make eye contact with your audience. This means that you don’t stare at the bride’s cleavage because you know the difference between smi
ling and drunken leering. For the Irish speaker, this distinction poses subtle epistemological challenges. For the Irish wedding, to be on the safe side, I recommend that all the speechmakers practise together in front of the mirror in the gents’ toilet before going live. Practise smiling, making charismatic eye contact and avoiding leering.

  The professional speechwriters also advise that you slow down. But this advice presents specific contextual challenges. To produce a good slow and steady pace in an Irish speaker, it is well accepted that he or she should consume a measured amount of alcohol to avoid our natural logorrhoea. However, everyone knows that alcohol gives rise to leering and staring, so you will need to get the precise balance just right. Experienced best men – with a reputation for the most memorable speeches – being of average build and weight, recommend three glasses of Champagne, four pints of lager, two and a half glasses of red wine, four glasses of white wine, two rum and blacks, and a double malted whisky, followed by a ten-minute rehearsal in front of the toilet mirror, before taking the microphone. You can add one unit of alcohol for each inch above six feet you stand in your socks. If in doubt, you can remove your shoes in the gents and ask someone to measure you while you lie along a convenient wall.