09/03/2006: "Social Observations at the Scene of a Wedding [VIDEOGRAPHER]"

Hi all,

The summer of weddings is officially over. 4 weddings in 3 months. 2 in Toronto, 1 in Alberta, 1 in Nova Scotia. Though each was great in its own way, I am glad wedding season is over.

I thought I’d give a few thoughts—nay, keen social observations—that I, with my keen sociologist’s eye, managed to take note of at these sundry nuptials. I must say, my keen sociologist’s eye is honed to a wicked edge when I get “in my cups,” so to speak, so it is perhaps not surprising that, while I am tippling at weddings—sometimes as a coping mechanism, other times simply as an outer expression of my inner merriment—that I am privy to quite a few shrewd, or not-so-shrewd, social observations.

OBSERVATION #1: THE WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHER

To quote Jerry Seinfeld, “Who are these people?” I only experienced one of them this year, at my final wedding, a huge 300-guest Greek affair, but I’ve experienced them before and I must say I don’t get the point of them at all.

See, photographs are different. That’s traditional. A moment frozen in time. Evidence, if there really needs to be, that so-and-so were here and smiling on the wedding day. But the best thing about photos is that they are SILENT. Austere. Yes, maybe you get a pushy photog who makes you smile for an hour if you’re the bride or groom or in the wedding party, and maybe in time those smiles get a bit forced—at least they do for me: it will look like I am smiling through a violent, invasive alien probe in more than a few of this summer’s wedding photos—but overall it’s part of the tradition of weddings.

But the Videographer is a new creature, with new and ridiculous demands. The one at my buddy Ryan’s wedding was a nice enough fella, gregarious to the extreme, almost patronizing, so much so that I felt that any moment he might jangle his car keys in front of my face like a baby photographer, going, “Let’s see that smile, Craigsy! Let’s see that pwetty wittle punnum!”

Anyway, so he follows the wedding party about, making us do bizarre and uncomfortable and unnatural things. Like, for example, he pulls us each aside in partners, a bridesmaid and her groomsman, for an “unscripted” wedding day message to the new couple. Of course, none of us know what to say, so there are a lot of nervous looks and, “Uh, well, congratulations you two. You’re a wicked couple, just awesome, and...uhhh, you rock.” My buddy Pete, bless him, got so flustered under the video camera’s unblinking eye that he said:

PETE: Uh, Ry, we’ve been buddies a long time and I hope we’re buddies for a lot longer, a whole lot longer, for the rest of our lives and then, um, into eternity.

INTO ETERNITY! Classic!

I, overhearing that classic line while waiting to record my own, had to goof on it:

CRAIG: Ryan and Sophie, you’re a great couple, just fantastic, I wish you all the best from this day forward, all your days, the rest of your lives, into ETERNITY!

But who can blame Pete? The whole videographer experience is so bizarre that it forces you into unnatural expressions of love and friendship or what-have-you. I mean, weddings are stressful enough without someone jamming a videocamera in your face and going, “Express your love and admiration for the new couple NOW! And be droll, be whimsical, be honest and true and FABU–LOOOUS because a permanent record will be made of this and your actions here, now, on this day will be judged going forward into ETERNITY!”

Well, screw that. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but after the videographer had hassled us for an hour and I felt he’d gotten more than enough footage, after he kept arranging us like potted plants and going, “Okay, now act relaxed and sunny and have a relaxed, sunny, off-the-cuff conversation,” I started to become what might be considered an “on set problem”:

SAMPLES OF “OFF-THE-CUFF” CONVERSATION:

ME [booming voice]: So the other night I killed a drifter and shoved his body in a sack and pushed it down into the ravine. I think I’ll get away with it, too [sniff of my boutonniere]. Yes, indeedy, I think I’m in the clear. What a rush it was, I’ll tell you that right now!

MY BUDDY BRIAN [getting into the swing of things]: I had a boner all the way through the wedding ceremony—did you see it? Just a huge, huge boner. Massive boner.

But the worst—the absolute WORST—was saved for the end, when the whole wedding party and the bride and groom were made to stand in a circle, everyone facing outward, and the videographer goes around us all, and we have to turn to face one another, all going one way, like toppling dominoes, and laugh and smile and make like we’re having a lovely time—which indeed we might of been without the sense of forced hilarity/whimsy enforced upon the proceedings. At this point we were all so tired of it that, when asked to “turn to your partner and engage in free-spirited conversation,” we just uttered the words that signified the what we were supposed to be enacting:

“Frivolity!” we cried

“Merriment!”

“Reckless abandon!”

“A celebration of everlasting love!”

“Naked dwarves!”

“Boner! Giant boner!”

“Etc! Etc! And so forth!”

Not that it mattered, because the videographer is going to cut and snip and clip and turn it all into something else, anyway. I cringe at that whole “around in a circle” scene being slowed down to super-slo-mo, with “Time of Your Life” by Green Day playing over top of it. Ye Gods!

Anyway, the thing is, I really do wish Ryan and Sophie the best—not that they need it: they’re a great couple—but I felt awkward getting a video camera shoved in my face and being made to express those sentiments under the gun. I think everyone else felt rather the same thing.

It’s not like I want to take the bread out of starving videographers’ mouths, but really, I’m not a fan. Down with wedding videographers! Down, I say!

All best, Craig.