5 People Who Will Definitely Be at Your Wedding

If you're having or attending a wedding with more than say, seventy five or a hundred guests, I can guarantee you there will be at least ten specific archetypes in attendance. I have attended many weddings and have always found these people among the guests. It doesn't matter the ethnicity, the economic standing, or the location. If you have a wedding with more than seventy five people present, you can bet the wedding kitty these types will be among them.

The Made Guy (or his non-Sicilian counterpart.) I have never been to a wedding where there wasn't at least one man there who was totally, as it were, "mobbed up." Sometimes he's an older man who's very polished, but you know he could make a few calls and get you a huge discount on the meal. Sometimes it's a thin guy in his thirties who gives a really vague description of his job but who has a suit worth more than your wedding gown. But he's there. And you really want to make sure he has a good time.

The over-dressed woman. I am the first to admit I have no fashion sense, so I shouldn't pick on this poor woman, but she's always at weddings. If it's an spring mid-morning wedding, she will come in a sequined evening dress. If it's an afternoon reception in a ballroom at a small town hotel, she will come in a sequined evening dress, strapless. If it's a night reception, she will still manage to wear something that is just that fifty to seventy five percent amped up from what everyone else has on. And her hair and makeup will always be casual. Because that's how she rolls.

The inappropriate cousin. No wedding would be complete without the cousin who takes the joke, or the open bar, too far. Sometimes, inappropriate cousin can be funny, either the kind of funny you laugh with or the kind you laugh at. But by the time he's set the first table cloth on fire showing his table mates his new "trick", the emphasis on the "in" of inappropriate really becomes key. This doesn't have to be a first cousin, it doesn't even have to be your cousin. But you know he's someone's cousin, and chances are, that person won't be standing up to claim him anytime soon.

The college friend's boyfriend. If you're in your mid-20s and getting married, you will definitely see this guy in full-effect. The older you get, the less apparent he becomes, but he'll be there, just balder. He's in a suit, because he has a good, stable, office job. He's there because his girlfriend, who will be wearing a "little black dress" the sale price of which she told him about in detail. And he's, in his own way, psyched to be there because, as he's been telling his buddies all week, there's gonna be liquor. And since he's been dating her, and having to go to weddings practically every weekend with her where he knows no one, and where she drops all kinds of hints about wanting to be engaged, too, well, liquor is his best and only friend on your special day.

The ancient distant relative. Every wedding has a lively old person at it. This is not the person to whom I am referring. I am talking about that "too old to be out of the home" relative who has been shuffled in by some well-meaning but stone crazy sixty five year old other relative who still wants her to "feel included" even though she would prefer to "not risk her life just to go to some seventh cousin's wedding." Poor woman. She can't eat any of the food, she doesn't recognize any of the guests, and the music would probably make her deaf, but she's already there. Worst of all, she's always parked at some back table, because she's not a grandma or even a great aunt, and the bride and groom don't even visit the table on their rounds til the ultra-oldster's already been wheeled or med-evac-ed home.

Every wedding is unique, but that doesn't mean these people won't find you. Yes, they will have different names, different faces, and come bearing different presents, many of which you will likely want to return. But keep a good eye out at your wedding or someone else's and you will find them lurking, drinking, hiding, or maybe trying to escape the crowd.