November, 1994

On the morning of my wedding I woke up at six a.m. feeling fantastic. During the night, the combined forces of my immune system and medical science had completely vanquished what remained of their bacteriological foe. I celebrated my pulmonary victory with deep, expansive, luxurious breaths and vowed never to take my lungs for granted again.

Which was actually pretty stupid. Because when you think about it, the whole point of lungs is that they work automatically so you can take them for granted. Lord knows, your schedule is hectic enough without having to carve out time to sit around singing songs of praise to your fucking lungs.

Anyway...

A surprising number of otherwise rational people actually attributed my timely recuperation to Divine intervention. It's a sign from God, they'd say, that you and Samantha belong together! Which was so theologically absurd it was hard to know where to start. An interventionist God who — instead of alleviating the untold suffering and misery that plagues our world — decided to micromanage the severity and duration of my illness for the express purpose of letting me know that I should be marrying the woman I was already planning to marry? Is that really what they thought?

Indeed it was. Although if I'm going to be completely honest, deep down, I was secretly thinking the exact same thing.

Divine intervention or not, it was as close to a perfect day as I could have hoped for. First of all, Samantha agreed to marry me. Once that happened, the entire San Gabriel Valley could have been sucked into a rogue black hole and I still would have considered the wedding to be, on balance, a success. More than that, though, there was a mood that permeated the entire affair; a joy that seemed exceptional, even by wedding standards. Everyone was so happy to be there, like someone had slipped them Ecstasy on the way in. (Which maybe someone had. At least two members of Samantha's family were former drug dealers.) Or maybe I was just projecting my own felicitous mood on our two hundred guests. Ninety percent Italian Catholics, ten percent Ashkenazic Jews and one very nervous Hindu.

Everything went off like clockwork, thanks in no small part to my almost complete lack of involvement in the planning process. Samantha, suspecting I'd be uninterested in most of the details — the flowers, the table settings, the guests — had given me the option to confine my involvement to the things I really cared about. I helped select the band and the photographer, and also insisted that she include in the gift registry a meat mallet. Because meat mallet is a funny word. (Say it out loud: Meat mallet! Fun, right?) Mostly though, it was just benign neglect, which would also, in a few years, serve as my parenting style as well.

My parents flew in their rabbi, Saul Coopersmith to perform the ceremony, which he was willing to do even though Samantha hadn't converted because he and my parents were friends and, also, he would go pretty much anywhere there was free alcohol. When he showed up, it was clear that he had already started drinking on the plane, but despite his mild inebriation — or, arguably, because of it — he was in fine form. Witty and poignant and personal, his flushed skin giving him a seraphic glow. And he kept the whole thing reasonably short. Maybe thirty minutes from processional to recessional, after which he laid down on a couch in the manager's office and went to sleep.

Samantha's family, who were accustomed to somber, long-winded masses, loved the lightness of it. And they were particularly excited about the part where I stomped on the glass — a Jewish tradition that symbolizes our peoples' long history of arguing about what our Jewish traditions mean — which they seemed to regard as some kind of magic trick.

"You didn't really break a glass, did you?" a number of them asked me — that number being five — even after having seen me do it with their own eyes.

"No," I told them. "It was all just sleight of foot." That was actually Gabe's joke, but he gave me permission to use it as a wedding gift, along a silver fruit bowl from Tiffany's that I'm pretty sure we never actually used.

Our first dance as husband and wife was to a song called "Your Golden Light." It was an obscure, heartrendingly romantic Scottish folk ballad about a radiant woman (or possibly an exceptional bottle of whiskey) by a guy named Rory McDowell that had I stumbled upon in the World Music section of Tower Records on Sunset. The euphoric descriptions of the woman's (or bottle's) luminescence immediately made me think of Samantha, so I did something I never imagined I'd do: I bought a Scottish folk album. (Love really does make you do strange things.) I never bought a second. I don't know if you've ever listened to Scottish folk music, but trust me, one is plenty.

Samantha and I really liked the idea of having a song that was uniquely ours, but what we hadn't considered was that, in all the years we would be married, we'd never once get to experience that sentimental serendipity of hearing Our Song playing by chance on the radio or in a restaurant or even, believe it or not, when we actually visited Scotland, where we saw Rory MacDowell in concert. Twice. And personally requested that he play the song, which he adamantly refused to do. Because Rory MacDowell had a gorgeous voice, but he was also a MacDick.

Still, it was a lovely dance, choreographed by Samantha's Maid of Honor, Tricia, who was once a professional dancer. Since Samantha and I were not professional dancers, most the the choreography involved the box step and us hugging each other. Samantha, radiant in her bow-butt-less gown added theatrical flourishes to her movements while I stared down at the floor to make sure I didn't step on her dress. Which, to everybody's surprise, I did not.

And as for my wedding party, which had initially been the source of so much friction, I am pleased to say that, on the whole, they did their jobs admirably.

Ivan relished his role as the resident Israeli. He insisted on reading through the katuba — a Jewish marriage contract — to make sure I wasn't agreeing to anything I would eventually regret. "Besides getting married in the first place," he semi-joked. Later on, I saw him arguing with Sonya and I'm pretty sure that was why.

During the ceremony, he audaciously corrected Rabbi Coopersmith's Hebrew pronunciation, which the rabbi shrugged off, too lit to be offended. And when it came time for the Chair Dance, where the bride and groom were each hoisted in the air on a chair by four people, Ivan decided he could dispense with the other three and hoist me into the air himself. He actually pulled it off. World's Strongest Jew, indeed.

Meanwhile, my idiot Cousin Joe kept his promise not to commit any violent crimes, although I should have been more specific, because a handful of wedding presents mysteriously went missing. (Not the meat mallet, happily.) He also ate a ton, proclaiming that the food was "so much better than what they have in prison." I told him that the chef would be delighted to hear that.

Then there was Dungeon Master Eric, who I lost track of after the ceremony, but reportedly drank way too much during the reception and fell into a confessorial funk, telling anyone who would listen that his life with the domineering Caitlyn was unbearable.

Called it!

It had, unbeknownst to Tom or myself, come to a head a few years prior, when Eric actually summoned up the nerve to confront Caitlyn. Fighting his fears, barely able to breathe, he looked her in the eye and declared in a strong voice, "Caitlyn! I want a divorce!" And in that moment, he felt powerful, manly, free.

But then Caitlyn did something truly amazing. She simply ignored her husband's words, and instead asked him what he wanted for dinner, chicken or hamburger?

Eric didn't know how to respond to that. He had steeled himself for a fight, but it never occurred to him that he'd have to fight in order to have the fight. He just didn't have the strength for that. So, deflated, he asked for hamburger and they never spoke of it again. Or, really, at all. Not too long after that, Caitlyn became pregnant and at that point, as far as Eric was concerned, his fate was sealed. He wasn't about to abandon his child. He was stuck with the Anti-Christ forever.

Later in the night, I'm told, Eric hooked up with one of Samantha's fat slutty cousins — not sure which; there were a lot to choose from — on the golf course. I don't condone infidelity, but I made an exception in this case. Because this would be as close to a victory as Eric would ever have.

Meanwhile, my father-in-law thought it would be funny to make me eat another plate of calamari. There was a lot of anticipatory laughter when the waiter, at Vic's request, placed it in front of me. But things were different now. "Vic," I said, "I already married your daughter. I'm not eating your damned calamari." He thought that was hilarious, clapping me on the shoulder appreciatively — and with maybe more force than was necessary — with a massive, meaty paw. It was the beginning of a thaw. And his respect for me only grew over the years, first when he saw how hard I was working in my career — he was all about the work ethic — and finally when I gave him two beautiful granddaughters who completely melted this big man's heart.

And finally, there was Tom.

He was everything anyone could want in a Best Man. Incredibly helpful — he was masterful at wrangling our unruly wedding party — and overflowing with joy. He was positively beaming as he escorted my mother-in-law down the aisle, and during the ceremony I noticed him dabbing his moist eyes with the sleeve of his rented tuxedo. And let me tell you, he was Johnny-on-the-Spot with the wedding rings, clutching them in his fist the whole time so he could produce them the moment they were called for. Which made the rings feel a little warm and sweaty, but that was fine. We appreciated the effort.

He cut loose during the reception, swept away by happiness. During the Hora, he gamely did a Cossack Dance, squatting on the floor and kicking out his legs with impressive athleticism, while everyone formed a circle around him, cheering and clapping. He sustained only minor injuries.

Later, he dragged our videographer — a friend of Samantha's with a ridiculous eighteen century carnival-barker mustache — so he could record for posterity the two of us singing our unofficial theme song, "Dare To Be Stupid" a cappella. We gave it our all, belting it out unabashedly, like we did when we were drunken teenagers, and also drunken twenty-somethings, now that I think about it. I thought we sounded great. And I've made sure to never watch the video, because I want to keep on thinking that.

Most memorably, though, was Tom's Best Man toast. I expected him to be funny and he was, recounting some of the dumber things we had done together. For instance, when we were teenagers, we thought it the height of hilarity to stand outside of a fast food restaurant, lean our faces against the glass, stare at the people eating, and drool. Which, looking back, still seems pretty funny.

But what surprised me about Tom's toast was how nakedly heartfelt it was. Heartfelt was not his natural state, certainly not with me. Despite all the time we had spent together, there was still guardedness and deflection whenever a conversation became personal. But now, in this roomful of (mostly) strangers, he opened up. His voice kept cracking — from nerves, from emotion — which made it all the more endearing.

And he ended his toast, astonishingly, by saying he loved me. We hugged and everyone awwwwed which Tom and I found annoying, because we worked in sitcoms and hated when the audience did that.

It was one of those friendship moments I will treasure forever. But I must confess that at the time, I did have mixed emotions. Mostly, I was tremendously touched by the sincerity of Tom's words, but I also knew that some day I would have to make a toast at his wedding.

How the hell, I thought, am I going to top that?

I had no idea.

All I knew is that I would.