A LIKELY STORY: THE LONGEST DAY: HIGHLIGHTS AND MISHAPS

Tequila shots, slam dancing and stogies are little-known customs for the Big Day. Who knew?

I suppose in 20 years, I may lie to the person writing my biography and tell them that my wedding day was the happiest day of my life but I cannot do such a disservice to my readers.

Honestly, I'm just glad it's over.

It goes on record as the longest day of my short life. The same scientists that are studying Mars for signs of life are also trying to figure out why Aug. 10, 1996, had 6,043 hours in it.

Neither they nor I can explain it.

It had nothing to do with my wife (My WIFE?, can you believe I have a wife?). She was the solid rock of the entire day. While I was making small puddles everywhere I stood, she was barking out orders like a drill sergeant.

That's why she's the boss. I don't have the stomach for it.

Me? I had other problems. I had to make adjustments to little customs that my groomsmen had to perform to fulfill their duties.

For example, did you know that groomsmen are supposed to duck out of the church 20 minutes before the service and do tequila shots? That's in the official etiquette book. They showed me.

It was also in this nifty book that they had to bring the half-empty bottle of tequila for the groom to drink five minutes before the service. Yep, that's in there, too.

And MY groomsmen would NEVER dream of breaching wedding-day etiquette.

Such conscientious fine young men.

Of course, they didn't have to exactly FORCE it down my throat. It calmed the shakes.

Then, after my groomsmen and I gathered to the front of the church before the ceremony they had to start in with the Official Wedding-Day Questionnaire.

We were all in a little room waiting for the music to begin.

"Are you really doing this?" James asked.

"Has she drugged you?" Mike said.

"Do you really even know this girl?" Marc said. (Yes, THAT Marc.) "She looks like she has shifty eyes to me."

"Yeah, and did you see the way she was looking at me?" my best man who's also my father asked.

Only one of my groomsmen came to my aid. I forget his name. Oh, wait, it's Josh. That's right.

He looked at me tenderly and said: "If you don't want her, can I have her?"

What a bunch of guys.

Later my groomsmen brought stogies to the reception for us to smoke. While Lori had no problem inhaling five or six of them, they first upset my stomach and I had to let her finish off mine.

She can spit out the butt of one of those and never lose an ounce of class.

Later that night, after Lori and I had our last dance and she was cleaning up (SOMEONE'S gotta do it), the boys and I bonded with a little slam dancing.

Except you could tell we're not 17-year-old rebels anymore. We jumped around and bounced into each other and thrashed to "Mandy" by Barry Banilow for a full four minutes before we tired out.

Eventually and without casualty, the night was wrapped up and all in all it wasn't so bad. I'm married and that was the purpose of the entire ordeal.

And we got a lot of great presents and food left over.

Oh, is anybody out there looking for a set of partially-used but less-than-helpful groomsmen?

~Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.