When my husband came home from work on Friday evening, I walked out of the bedroom wearing a dress and a pair of boots, because I decided the chances of falling on my ass while wearing the heels I bought were simply too high to risk at the rehearsal dinner.

Me: Does this look okay, or do I look like a hooker?

Husband: (gives me the once over) You look great baby! But, yeah, a little.

You’ve gotta love honesty.

Anyway, the following morning I returned the heels for a pair of flats to match my dress, which turned out to be the best decision I could have made since I had to climb a ton of stairs before arriving at the ceremony location. Scratch that, once I arrived at the reception location – I missed the actual wedding, though I did manage to walk into someone else’s by accident. How was I supposed to know there would be two ceremonies going on at the same time?

So, yeah, that was embarrassingly awesome.

The wedding was, by my standards anyway, pretty large – 200 people. Most of the attendees were friends and family of the bride. The groom is from the East Coast, and while he had a fair amount of family fly in for the event, in terms of his buddies there were only ten people, and that included their significant others. I was concerned about seating, as you never know how that’ll go down. I once attended a wedding in which I was not allowed to bring a plus one, and ended up at a table with all the reject cousins. It was painful. Since my husband was in the wedding party, I thought perhaps he might be at a separate table, with the other groomsmen and bridesmaids (of which there were nine, and only four groomsmen, I was bummed at missing my husband walk down the aisle with a woman on each arm). We had to line up to find our names and corresponding table number. Luckily, my man and I were both at table 12.

Then began the long journey down the many steps I had already climbed up, making me ever so thankful I bought sensible pair of shoes, to the area where the dinner was to be held. Once we got there, we walked some more, searching in vain for table 12.

And then we saw it.

Table 12, where the good times happen

Table 12 was allllllllll the way at the back, at the furthest edge of the group, far away from the bride and groom, and most importantly, their immediate families. Our mates for the evening were none other than the rest of the groom’s buddies. This was an incredibly smart move on the part of the newlywed couple. Actually, it was probably the groom’s idea, since he undoubtedly knew how rowdy his friends would be after a cocktail or ten, and that they were bound to revert to college day drinking habits, since that was the last time some of them saw each other.

What was not a smart idea, however, was that they let the caterers set up the bar right next to our table. Open bar plus a half dozen guys that rarely see each other but used to be inseparable is not a good idea.

Or perhaps it was calculated. Maybe they figured bringing the alcohol close to the table instead of making them walk for it would mean less interaction with other horrified guests. And believe me, there were more than a few looks of annoyance thrown in our direction, especially when they chatted and carried on straight through the speeches. To be fair, as one of the guys said, “I would have listened, but we were so far back I couldn’t hear anything.”

All in all, it was a ton of fun. The groom knew the deal, so he was completely unfazed by his buddies’ shenanigans. And it was clear he married the right lady, because she said a gracious thanks to all ‘his boys’, and wasn’t miffed in the least.

Good times.