Nothing butter than a beautiful wedding

Corey Moss

With both my parents coming from large families, and enough cousins to start a circus, weddings have been and will continue to be as common in my household as a bad hair day.

As kids, my brothers and I were always able to enjoy weddings, and more importantly, the receptions, to the fullest.

Most of the time we found ourselves mocking our drunk relatives, trying to get a laugh out of everyone we could.

I can remember one time when my little brother went so far as to place the dollar directly into the cleavage of the bride during the dollar dance. To this day he claims he was following the move of the guy in front of him.

He was maybe 10 at the time, so it was a pretty innocent act, but seeing as how the father of the bride was behind him in line, it was probably not the best timing in the world.

And of course there was always that one cute girl we would all fight over — at least until we found out she was a distant cousin.

There was the same group of us that shared a table at every wedding dinner. We were too old to sit at the kid table, but too immature to sit at the grown-up table — so they stuck as the medium-kid table.

One reception, my older brother came back from the buffet line to the medium-kid table and placed a giant mountain of butter onto his plate. My cousins and I started laughing hysterically and he couldn’t figure out why.

Apparently, the whipped butter seemed to bare a close resemblance to ice cream. And seeing as how ice cream is usually served in one small bowl in the middle of every table, he managed to mistake the one for the other.

Anyway, this past weekend the fam gathered once again for a wedding celebration. But this time my brothers and I weren’t allowed to sit at the medium-kid table, eating butter and hitting on distant relatives.

Instead, we sat at the grown-up table. In fact, we sat at the head of the entire reception.

It was my big brother who was wearing the tux, cutting the cake and kissing the bride. It was my little brother and I who were moshing in our tuxes, eating the cake and kissing the bride.

It was an strange day — that’s for sure — watching the first Moss tie the knot. But it was a beautiful day.

Put aside the maid of honor losing the wedding ring off her finger and into the train of bride’s dress and a unity candle that needed a flame-thrower to ignite, and the ceremony was perfect.

As best man, I stood tall in my duties and made it an entire half hour without getting to emotional. That was, of course, until others in the wedding party started losing it. And just as a my stomach began to hurt from holding in tears, I caught a glimpse of my mom.

Big mistake. Crying chaos began. It was like the lard-ass scene from Stand By Me, the domino effect kicked in and before I knew it, the entire church was in tears, including the big studly best man.

I don’t understand why everyone was crying. We expected long ago that the day would come.

There’s just something special about seeing the father of the bride escorting her daughter down the aisle that makes it all so real.

I couldn’t be happier for my brother. Not only has he married one of the coolest girls I have ever met, but he made it through an entire reception without mistaking the butter for ice cream.

I just can’t help but wonder if, now that he’s married, he’ll be able to sit at the grown-up table.


Corey Moss is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.