This Fall, Don't Let Anyone Shame You For Watching A Football Game At A Wedding

This fall, many of us will be invited to weddings. Most of these will be on Saturdays, some of them on Sundays, all of them smack in the middle of football season.

And it is here I will remind you of an ancient proverb, which you can deploy in your defense, should you be accosted for doing what anyone would do in this situation, which is to say watching football on your phone during the reception:  “Poor planning on your part does equal an emergency on mine.”

I bring this up because I was alerted last night to a snotty and outright unreasonable tweet on this matter.

You spent HOURS planning your wedding, yet couldn’t manage to fit it in to the 75 percent of the year that does not contain football games.  You kinda boofed that one, but that’s fine. By all means, have your wedding when and where you want to have it. The thing is, though, it’s on you. You can have it in the spring, but if you do, you don’t get to complain when it rains. Have a summer wedding outside, and when it’s 95 degrees and you can see right through all the groomsmen’s shirts, you only have yourself to blame. Likewise, by all means, have a fall wedding as long as you can live with the fact that we are going to be watching football games on our phones during the reception.

It doesn’t make us bad, it makes us human.

Accosting us about it will not accomplish what you think it will. You think what’s going to happen is that, full of shame, we’ll sheepishly tuck the phones away and chew on our knuckles until we can find out what happened in the game. But that’s not what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen is, those of us trying to watch the game are just going to duck out of the reception and watch it outside while we pretend to be on a smoke break for 45 minutes. Or we’ll take it into a bathroom stall. Or out to the car.

Or, most likely, we’ll just be more discreet, hold the phone a little lower, maybe hide it behind a flower arrangement and keep a watchful eye out for the bride, who has chosen to behave on her wedding day like a middle school teacher who’s had it up to here with these kids.

You gonna make me spit out my gum too?

Then again, maybe middle school teacher is the appropriate demeanor, since just like middle school, 80 percent of the people at your wedding don’t want to be there, aren’t having a good time, and definitely won’t remember any of the minute details you’ve wasted HOURS agonizing over.

Oh, the DJ is playing “Uptown Funk” is he?

Hey guess what, the Best Man has some salacious stories about the groom he’s going to allude to, but not tell in detail. 

And the Maid of Honor? Well, you’re never going to believe this, but she’s about to begin her toast with an inside joke nobody understands, followed by a long explanation of what a good friend she’s been to the bride.

Look, that kid is dancing HAHAHAHAHAHAHA SO CUTE!

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we’ve been to your wedding. We all have, over and over again, for years and years. And we’re happy for you, and your dress is so pretty, and you guys are going to make a lovely couple and so on and so forth.

And nothing about us watching a football game during this event is going to change any of that, so chill out.