Mashed Potatoes in a Martini Glass: The Paul Amin Wedding Blog

If you're lucky you have many friends, each bringing their own qualities to the table. Some friends do whatever you want, go wherever you want, laugh at all your jokes, tell you you can get laid by anybody anytime you want to and boost your self-esteem. Anybody loves having these friends around. If you are truly blessed you have at least one friend who will tell it like it is, regardless of how it affects your ego.

Meet Paul Amin, Paul is actually the inspiration behind this blog. He is well read and well navigated on the internet. He truly believes it when he tells me my writing is as good as any he's read and that it is my true talent. If I make money writing, I will owe a lot to Paul. On the contrary, Paul sat me down in a chair 30 minutes before going out on a bachelor party, that I was grossly overweight and in danger of dropping dead.

Most times a friend like Paul is a good gauge of your true qualities and flaws. Some times he is just a dick. He was nice enough, however to invite me to his wedding on Sunday, September 4.

His bride is Kate Foley. Kate and I have been friends since I worked as a houseboy at her sorority house in college. We used to discuss Days of our Lives almost daily, until we both stopped watching around the time Belle grew from age 6 to age 16 over the course of a sweeps month weekend (to my friends and readers, you didn't read that last paragraph, it was never written, just forget you ever read it).

Paul's method of courtship towards Kate, was a little unorthodox. Paul may have been too shy or awkward to simply ask Kate to dinner or take her out on a dance floor at a bar. So he chose to make as much of a spectacle of himself as possible, which may have been necessary considering my group of friends. He would call Kate "Mick Foley" and ask her to hit him with chair shots. Believe it or not, this worked.

My presence is my only involvement in this wedding, which while keeping the costs down and limiting my responsibilities, also does not give me any inside track towards any of the single women at the wedding. As it would turn out, there were almost no single women at this wedding, so if you're waiting to hear about near hookups with really big women or 20 year olds, you can go back to work or Googling or whatever you were doing.

The hotel is the Short Hills Hilton in Short Hills, New Jersey across from the notoriously hoighty toighty Short Hills Mall. This hotel is nicer than any hotel, I should be staying at. It has one of those overly friendly staffs that are so good at hospitality they actually make you feel bad for staying in their rooms while they work. Inside the room are bathrobes, a mini-bar, and for those of you who thought HDTV was the greatest innovation of home entertainment, TV volume audible in the bathroom. This will be in my first house somehow, I don't care what I have to do, or what wiring is involved. The ability to take a shit and miss nothing of what's on TV is one of the greatest luxuries a man can have.

Now as I mentioned Kate lived in the sorority house that I worked in as a lunch/dinner houseboy. Naturally that position led to half of my hookups in college. However to the surprise of many in attendance, none of my sorority house conquests are at this wedding. There is however, a little history at this wedding.

I don't care who a man is, once in a his life he tries a little too hard for a woman. We can all remember a time when we jumped the gun and appeared a little too eager, bamboozled by women's declaration of need for sensitive men. One summer I asked out a girl named Bethany Davison with a bouquet of carnations, and words of affection written across pieces of a Winnie the Pooh jigsaw puzzle. Just typing that killed any possibility of an erection for the rest of the night. Of course she said something to the likes of "I'm not ready for a relationship" when she meant "You're psycho, don't ever call me again" and was with the man she'd end up marrying two weeks later.

So of course, you know who was the first person I saw checking into the hotel. The greetings were cordial but not lengthy. Not that I have anything against Bethany, she's just a reminder of a time I made an idiot of myself, and you try to avoid those people rather than cling to them.

As, my friends trickle in, I watch a little Syracuse football and A&E's marathon of the past season of 24. Between Perry Patterson "are there any option offense schools left that I can transfer to" face and Jack Bauer's "WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!?!" it's a no brainer what the better television was.

The cast of invitees are Greco, Beers, Josh, Coach, Vabilla and Josh, Coach and Vabilla's significant others. Josh's wife is pregnant and can't drink but still manages to be 10 times more interesting than Josh who is still bragging about his fantasy football team. Coach and Vabilla's significants must be part of some pre-ordained agreement. Either that or they are being roofied every minute of their relationship because they never would've dated Coach and Vabilla if they were sober (j/k kids).

I am dateless to this occasion. Josh's wife, Erin says that my wedding should be the farthest away of everyone's because of all the hours and miles I have spent driving to everyone else's wedding. Of course, by the time I get married, there will be flying cars that run on oxygen and no drive to New Hampshire will be of any inconvenience to anyone.

Since the wedding is in North Jersey, we must get lost. I believe Northern New Jersey was specifically designed for out of staters to get lost and forget all thoughts of moving to the already overpopulated area, in case the smell wasn't enought of a deterrent.

We fortunately arrive in time for the service, and receive the wedding favors, a burned CD, assumingly with songs we'll be hearing during the reception. Here is the tracklist:

1. Fortunate- Maxwell: Helping black men get laid since 1996
2. Forever- R. Kelly: Helping 14 year olds get laid since 1993
3. Let's Get Married Remix- Jagged Edge
4. September- Earth, Wind & Fire
5. Beautiful Day- U2
6. We Are Family- Sister Sledge
7. A Song for Mama- Boys II Men
8. Isn't She Lovely- Stevie Wonder
9. Breathe- Faith Hill
10. Wonderful World- Sam Cooke
11. When I'm 64- The Beatles
12. The Natural Theme


Knowing them both, it is fairly obvious that Paul picked tracks 1,2,3,7 and 12 and Kate picked tracks 4,5,6,8,9,10 and 11. However I recommend this idea to any couple currently planning a wedding. It is fairly inexpensive (iTunes downloads, blank CDs, CD Label paper) and is more likely to be used for a longer time then say a picture frame or a wine glass.

I have to be honest, my view for the service was not good, as five tall Jews known as Paul's groomsmen were in my way. And when it comes to Jewish services, I'm as goyem as they get. In fact this is my first Jewish wedding. I remember there was a Chuppah, a Ketubbah (but no Ketrumpet or Ketrombone), Kate walked in a square for what seemed like 15 minutes, a lot of hebrew was spoken to which I am hopeless to translate and finally they broke glass.

Perhaps if this were a more reformed temple, the broken glass could have been replaced with Kate finally giving Paul that chair shot he had asked for followed by Jim Ross shouting "Good God King, Kate Amin just hit Paul with a steel chair! and now they're husband and wife! we're out of time! See you next week!"

The ceremony was followed by a Cocktail Hour which words couldn't describe. There wasn't something for everbody. There was everything for everybody. Fruit bar, Sushi Bar, Caviar Bar, Mashed Potato Bar (yep, serving Mashed Potatoes in Martini glasses), London Broil, Corned Beef, Chicken. Bill is loading up on fruit, unconfirmed as to whether or not this was his girlfriend Allison's request. Coach and I are loading up on sushi. Everyone is enjoying a Mashed Potato Martini with sauteed onions.

Of course the bar is open. And while I drink them nowhere else, I am downing Whiskey Sours like water. Something about a wedding makes drinking beer the last thing on my mind. Maybe it's the formality of the event. Maybe it's the ability to drink mixers for free. Who knows.

I hope to marry an only child when I do get married. It's obvious the families went all out for this entire affair. Excellent job and if Paul and Kate's family are only able to read this part of my blog, I was overwhelmed with their generosity, thank you.

The memories of the reception are a little fuzzy as I down more and more Whiskey Sours. The one thing I noticed was the song selection. What we got was 'Electric Slide' and 'We are Family' when we were expecting 'Ruff Ryders Anthem', 'Hate Me Now' by Nas and Puff Daddy, and 'Superthug' by N.O.R.E. I guess when your new brides family and yours are in attendance, including grandparents, you have to make some compromises.

Like I said, there was almost no eager women at the event. My friend Beers points out one of the bridesmaids, which Bill tries to label "out of my league". Now Bill has an attractive, cool girlfriend now, but I remember the days where we couldn't get him laid in prison. Now he's a "Hook-Up Commissioner". I don't get it.

Turns out the bridesmaid was not single after all, in fact none of them were. We arrive at the hotel, Beers and I belly up to the bar for a beer and have one of those "what does the future hold?" conversations that we've all been having since we graduated college. The truth is though that when nine men are true to themselves and each other, nothing ever changes for the worse.

Of course the A&E 24 Marathon is still going on which makes it easy to decline the 15 dollar hotel porn as a nightcap. The next morning we get together for the sendoff breakfast, which is always more interesting if something bizarre happens the night before, but in any event. Paul and Kate say their thank you's and goodbyes and reveal to me a secret. His sister's husband's sister pointed out the best looking guy at the wedding...yours truly.

How do I know that's true? Paul wouldn't tell me if it wasn't.