I am NOT coming to your Fall Wedding

Not only am I not coming, you’re not even getting a gift. In fact, I’ll hack your on-line registry and mark everything on your wish list as “already have.”

Ladies, this is football season. College football season lasts approximately 100 days, which is less than one-third of the calendar year. You can have a Christmas wedding. You can have a Summer wedding. You can even have a Mardi Gras wedding. You can get married in any of the other nine months out of the year (and that number of months is significant for a reason).

My lovely wife of nearly 33 years wanted to have a fall wedding. Shortly after I proposed (and she wisely accepted), the conversation went something like this:

Me: “So, Honey. When do you think you’d like to schedule the wedding?”
Her: “I want a fall wedding. The weather is cool and dry, the colors are great. So, sometime in October or November.”
Me: “No.”
Her: “But I am the bride. I am paying for this and I get to pick the date.”
Me: “Not no. but Hell no.”
Her: “This is not right. You will marry me on the date I select, or it’s not happening.”
Me: “Honey, I love you. I really do. But it’s time we started seeing other people.”
Her: “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS %$#&^!!! You and your friends are &^#Q&$!!!”
Me: “Yes, we are. And we’re watching college football all day on whatever Saturday you have in mind.”
Her After much wailing, gnashing of teeth and thing-throwing: “[sigh]  Ok. When is a good weekend, Mister Football?”
Me: “The First Saturday in December is probably good.”

So, we got married on the First Saturday in December, 1986 and we were in total wedded bliss until… 1992.

That’s when the Southeastern Conference expanded to 12 members with two divisions and created the world's first major college football conference championship game. They scheduled the annual SEC Championship Game for ... the First Saturday in December.

I was horrified.

So, the conversation in November 1992 went something like this:

Me: “Um, do you think we could reschedule our Anniversary? Because Alabama is playing Florida in the first ever SEC Championship Game.”
Her: Not no, but Hell no.”

There are some battles that are not worth fighting.

The lesson here is that in 1986, the first Saturday in December was probably a good date to schedule a “fall” wedding. It is no longer.

Gentlemen, grow some balls. Be the Man of the House® or something. If you allow your future bride to schedule a wedding during football season, you are probably one of those pantsless dudes driving around with “House Divided” vanity tags on the front of your vehicle.

And your vehicle is probably a Toyota Prius, Chevy Volt or some other such “sensible” nonsense.

Guys drive cars. Men drive trucks and they proudly display their team’s logos on the front bumper, back window or tag frame. She’s marrying you. She is not entering into some sort of truce that allows her to decorate your schtuff with her team’s colors and logo.

Grow some cajones, and don’t let the bride-to-be ruin a perfectly good football Saturday.

That is all.