Groomed To Walk The Earth: The Dudes, The Photos and The Ugly.

Firstly, here's something different, if not a little tacky for a wedding..........

So.................... the more I look into this wedding stuff, the more confused I am about just exactly what it is I'm responsible for, other than the obvious role of turning up to get married.........that bit seems to be easy.

What else I am supposed to organise or be doing over the next 7 months?

Throughout my 30+ years of breathing, I've never really paid any attention to who does what in the lead up to a wedding. Sure, you all stand up there for the ceremony and then during the reception a few people make a speech, but what else is there to do? I've never been privy to the pre-wedding stuff as I've not ever been a Groomsmen and, I haven't been married before (THANK GOD!) so my experience is essentially only about as long as the combined amounts of minutes spent at the maybe 6 or 7 weddings I've ever been too.

The reception minutes don't count as I (along with the table I'm usually on) am quite certainly six sheets to the wind and not paying attention anymore by the time anyone in the wedding party does anything......... Free booze....what can you do?

Anyway, I know we need suits. That much is clear. Or at least suity type apparel.............. Hopefully we can get this part sorted without too much further trouble.

Then there is the Stag or Bucks party....... a topic for later discussion.

I also have no idea of what role my Groomsmen (surely there is a better term - Dudesmen? The Others Guys?) play in all this malarky. There doesn't seem like there is much else for the lads to do. Even if there was something for them to do, for some reason I'd feel bad asking them to do it. Don't ask me why, I just would. I'm not used to asking people to do stuff for me that I can do myself....... I've been told it's about involving your close mates and having that male bonding thing etc etc, but I've never been big on it.

I guess I might have to learn to accept it.

Beck and I are all over the organisation, the invites, the food, the all important booze, tables and chairs etc, so it really just leaves the setting up and pulling down of everything which we will have (hopefully) many hands on the Friday night/ Saturday morning to help do.

Which leaves me kinda still wondering if I'm missing something.............

So I started looking at pics on the web of Groomsmen and their collective looks to see what I like, and I've discovered that it's really hard to photograph and dress grooms without making them look like complete meat-heads, flaming fruits, emo-tards or left-field indie I-removed-my-testes-long-ago-to-get-chicks-and-I'm really-sensitive types. The first two could easily cross-over into each other (There is such a thing as too much man-love in wedding pics). Then there is just the plain badly dressed!

I think I might lay out some rules for us Groom-types for the wedding pics...........

No sunglasses. We are NOT nor will we ever be Jake & Elroy J. Blues

No Jumping. You look like a rapist.

No Goatees. Seriously, they look like you've been playing the rusty-trombone.....

No Guns. Seriously?

No Steve Buscemeyes.................or Portrayals of Indian Deities for that matter!

No Album Covers...................It's not a Nickleback shoot.

No We're-so-wacky-and-non-conventional pics........

There are definitely a few I do like the feel of. Most of those are of the journalistic type captured moments. The non-contrived and non-posed style. It's the warmth of the bonds and friendships that I would most hope would shine through. I remember from Ash & Nicola's wedding there was a pic taken of a few of us (Ash, Pete, Simon & I) and it's now one of my favourite photographs. I can only hope we get this kind of feeling and honesty coming through in ours.

This pic is the kind of feel I hope we get. It's still a little shit because it's semi-posed, but I guess you can never really escape that when photographing a wedding.......