Tableaux Noir and the Institution

I do not mind married people. They are on the whole a kind and considerate community who, although often distracted and sometimes perhaps less than pleasantly astonished by the person to whom they have pledged themselves, are on the whole affable cohorts on any given occasion - save the occasion of their wedding. Here the sheer volume of distraction is dialed up by friends and family to the mythical 11 - an amplification rendering them largely dazed and speechless for the greater part of the day. I observed this first hand during Companion's second cousin's niece's recent nuptials. I use nuptial in its ancient sense of "characteristic of or occurring in the breeding season", for nowhere was breeding season in starker evidence than under the rain soaked canopies of the Yorktown pavilion. There was strutting, pecking, preening and posturing sufficient to embarrass a marsh of flamingoes, culminating in the storming out of a bridesmaid during a groomsman's rendition of The Elephant Walk. During it all the hapless couple sank further into catatonic shock. We did what we could; I administered a Tableaux Noir to the bride and groom, a curative wine from that blessed Tableaux region of France which did its work admirably, while Companion consoled the bridesmaid and referred her to angrybridesmaids.com to vent her not inconsiderable ire. We drove home in agreement that, despite everything, a wedding is indeed a great event. Terrible, yes, but great.