Last Saturday, I sat in the back of a church watching a hunting buddy give away his daughter in holy matrimony. Tears welled in his eyes, while I wondered if it was the emotion of the moment or thoughts of the bill.
It takes an outdoorsman about thirty seconds to conclude that weddings are designed by and for women. If left up to us, things would be different. Much different.
For starters, none of us would waste money on a wedding planner. These people merely charge a lot of money for throwing a party. Remember that life is a journey; what you really need is a guide. Preferably one that can call and has a couple thousand acres of prime turkey real estate.
Gift registries must seem like Christmas to the bride. To the groom, it only raises the question of why they didn’t sign up at the Bass Pro Shop. After all, how many toasters does one couple need? Especially when you could get new trailer tires, some catfish bait, and a half gallon of mosquito repellent.
Too many things at a wedding only have one use and then they are filed, stored, or forgotten. Take the marriage license. Buy one and it’s good for life. They should have a Sportsman’s Wedding License that includes marriage, hunting and fishing for life. You would have lots fewer single guys with a deal like that.
The bachelor party is the one event that is already planned by guys. Still, if we controlled the rest of the wedding, we could make both fit a single theme. For starters, we’d kick off the evening with a round of skeet.
As far as the bride’s party goes, we would leave it alone. That’s mainly because we’ve always been afraid to ask what happens when you get that many women together in one room unsupervised.
The rehearsal dinner is another place we could contribute. To make sure all our buddies were comfortable, we’d book Country Bob’s Bluegrass and Barbecue for an all-you-can-eat buffet. Hors d’oeuvres, which none of us can pronounce or spell, would be replaced with peanuts in the shell. Of course, all empties, peanuts or otherwise, would end up on the floor as might a few of our buddies.
The wedding ceremony also smacks of female planning. Everything is flowers and frill. If guys decorated the church, for instance, we’d spruce it up with something that could be re-used to brush out a duck boat.
Worse yet, wedding clothes are never worn twice. Imagine instead the bride and groom in matching 3-D camo. The only problem they might have is being pelted with rice when they leave the church; some over-eager game warden might see them in camo and mistake this for baiting a dove field.
The vows definitely were not written by guys. Here’s what ours would sound like.
“I (repeat the name on your hunting license), take (check her license), to be my hunting partner, to have and to hold until the alarm goes off at about 3 a.m. on opening day, for better or worse, which includes those days she shoots better than me, for richer or poorer or until the shells run out, to love and to cherish, from this day until Heaven forbid turkeys are extinct.
But in the event this deal goes South on us, I get the dog.”
And of course, her vows would be different also.
“I (you know this one), take this handsome devil to be my guide, from this day forward, to have and to hold even though he smells and has cold feet, for richer (like that will happen) or poorer (Vegas odds on that one), in sickness and in health, including any disease typical of outdoorsmen (large egos, buck fever, Lyme disease, and a disorder known as ‘all objects in this mirror are larger than they appear’), to love and to compliment his outdoor prowess from this day until Boone & Crockett build his memorial.”
At this point, the couple would exchange his and her Buck knives and be hitched. We would leave the mushy stuff for later.
After the ceremony, the couple would head to the reception in a Hummer towing a smoker with a pig slow-cooking over hickory chips. When it comes time to throw the bouquet, the groom would yell, “PULL!”, the bride would toss it and all the single chicks would shoot. Then the married couple would drive happily into the sunset, headed for an Orvis resort in Montana.
Maybe it’s not a traditional wedding plan, but just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. Probably would to the bride’s, too.
