From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - A Duffy Family Wedding: The Joys And Stress

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

On this episode, Sean and Rachel bring on their daughter, Evita, and their future son-in-law Michael Alfonso to talk about their upcoming wedding.   Evita and Alfonso discuss the decision to get married at the young age of 22, the importance of faith and tradition in marriage, and they share some o the special plans for the wedding day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Save up to $75 in the AncestryDNA Cyber Sale, our lowest price of the year. Treat yourself or a loved one to a DNA journey of discovery at a truly incredible price. Discover your heritage, learn about your ancestors, and make new family connections. But hurry, these savings are only for a very limited time. Visit Ancestry.ca to start your journey today. Offer ends December 3rd. Terms apply. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, along with my co-host for the podcast, but also my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos-Tuffy. Thank you, Sean. You know what else I am? The mother of the bride. And you are the father of

the bride. And we have a wedding, believe it or not, in what is it, three days from now? Is it three-day countdown, I think? And boy, it has been an experience to see your daughter get married is one of the proudest, happiest moments. But it involves some stress as well. We're going to talk about that. But also, more importantly, we're going to invite our daughter and our future son-in-law to join us on the podcast to talk about getting married, what it's like, why they decided to do it so young because they're only 22. So with no further ado, let's welcome Evita, our daughter, Evita Duffy, and Michael Alfonso, our soon-to-be son-in-law. Welcome you guys and congratulations.

Welcome to the kitchen table. Okay, so let me ask you first. I don't know the answer to this. So Evita, what's your name going to be? Is it going to be Evita Duffy Alfonso, Evita Alfonso? What is the name going to be? Are you trying to start a fight before they even get married? We don't know the answer to that. We haven't made a final call yet

because I'm not somebody who likes to buck tradition a lot. Michael definitely wants me to take his last name, but I also have a byline with a lot of Duffy, Evita Duffy. So that's something that I have to think about. Well, I'll just say that when me and your mom got married, I wanted her to be Rachel Duffy, and she was like, no, I want to be Rachel Campos Duffy. And there's a lot of tension and stress around that because.

For you, not me. Right. Well, exactly. And I imagine Michael feels the same stress because I wanted you to take my last name. But I get she was like, but I'm Campos. I've been Campos forever. I've been Campos forever. And also like you, Evita, you have a lot of writing and bylines that you have from your work. I had done, you know, some television work before I met Sean and, and had a,

a career starting in broadcasting. And so I just didn't. And also I will always be my father's daughter. Don't you want her to always be your daughter? Uh, some days. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding. Of course I do, but that doesn't, her last name doesn't, um, doesn't mean she's Michael. How do you feel Michael? Here you make your case. Well, I think you guys have given us a great template. It should be Evita Duffy Alfonso. It works out perfectly. She gets to keep your guys's last name and take mine. Look, he's already compromising. Apparently this was not as easy of a decision before, but we've, we, maybe we've nudged him a lot. So let's get to this. You guys are 22 years old. Avita, you just graduated a couple

weeks ago, a few weeks ago from the University of Chicago. Michael, you are a math major at UW Wisconsin and you have what, another semester left. A lot of people, a lot of people your age, A, aren't getting married, B, would definitely wait until after both of you were graduated, and C, would just live together. Talk to me, Michael, about why you think it was important or why you wanted to marry Evita so young. Well, I think when you meet the person you know you're supposed to marry, you kind of just know it. I've known it since I was 18 years old. And, you know, everyone says that you should wait for the perfect time.

But there really are no perfect times in life. That's true. So I just thought, why wait? How old were you guys when you started dating again? 18 years old. You're saying you knew you wanted to marry Evita as soon as you started dating her? It was about two months in and i knew so were you guys dating in high school or is this after high school no we actually

waited until we were graduated and then we started dating okay so we went on dates in high school because i remember that you went to the prom together the prom doesn't necessarily mean that you're dating just as he was he was my date date to the prom. We were really good friends, but we were not dating at that time. So I want to talk about a father parental thing because we often talk about on the podcast how bad cell phones are for kids and how it can be such a great distraction to get sucked in. And again, a lot of negativity comes from a cell phone. But there's also, there's also some positive from cell phones. And when you pay for the cell phone of your child, you can also track your child. And so I would track Evita. And again, she's my first, I would track her all the time when she was out

with Michael. And if she, if she would tell me that she was in one place, but I would pull her up on the tracker and find her in another place. I would call hell to pay. And the biggest issue was making sure that she knew that I was tracking her. So she couldn't lie to me. So that's again, I'm going to, I'm going to tell you, listen, I'm telling you, this is, so there's one time where Evita went to Walmart with Michael and I pulled up the tracker and Evita was not in Walmart, but in the Walmart parking lot. And I called her and she said, I'm in Walmart. And I'm like, no, you're not.

And she was in the parking lot and say, OK, I'm in the parking lot. I just got here. Enough, dad. Stop tracking me. We just walked out of the store. OK, so, yes, now you don't have to worry about that because they're going to get married and there's not going to be any issues about that. We were school shopping.

We were literally doing all of this. So just so everyone knows in the Duffy family, before, before we school shop, it is like before, before the kids go to school, the shopping is the craziest endeavor in the house. It's the worst part to have nine kids for the last shop for school supplies for. So you get the list to get glue and right. And Kleenex. And yeah, for the last, I don't know how many years, many years, my parents have decided not to do the school shopping. And it has actually been Michael and I and Michael and I always go into the school shopping. So we were actually doing them a favor by going to Walmart for hours on end to then

do the school shopping for all the kids. That is one of the greatest things that you guys have done for us that we're always so grateful that we were able to delegate the start of the school year shopping list for them. So I want to go back to what people really care about. If you don't, most of your peers are not getting married. Why at 22 would you want to get married? So countercultural. I don't think I ever really thought about it as I mean, I guess it is countercultural. But I mean, there are some faiths like Mormons.

They get married really young and that's just sort of what they do. It was never it never crossed my mind that I really want to get married young. There was never an age. I don't I don't really plan things like that. It just happened. I just I fell in love with Michael. He asked me to marry him and And I said, yes, it was not, it wasn't, it wasn't planned out. So just, it's so funny because when you guys got engaged, I wanted it to be, by the way, I don't believe in long engagements, but time-wise, you know, you were graduating and you wanted to

get, you guys wanted to get married at the end of June. And I was like, but she just would have had her graduation. Why don't we move it to July or September? And boy, you guys just wanted to get married right away. And we just said, okay, fine. I mean, we love you guys. We love you guys as a couple and we wanted to do it. What do your friends think about the fact that you guys are getting married so young? I think a lot of them are pretty shocked, especially the ones that knew us in high school. We never really, we weren't dating in high school, and then suddenly we started dating and now we're getting married. A lot of kids, especially even in the Catholic schools, don't really take Catholic values seriously. And I think that's a big difference between why we're getting married young and a lot of people are pushing it off till later. Yeah, I think that a lot of

our friends, I mean, we we've surrounded ourselves with like-minded people in college. So some people I think definitely think it's bizarre, but I don't really, I don't really talk to those people. So the people that I, that we've surrounded ourselves with actually think it's a really cool thing and have been really supportive of us and love Michael and I. Do you have other friends that are married? Others? I know of a few people, but do I have like really close friends that are married? No, it's it's pretty much just us. Do you worry at all that that being married will in some way separate you from your college friends, your high school friends that maybe aren't in the same boat or you guys know that everybody's just going to it? No, I think we just all we all hang out. We his friends are my friends. My friends are his

friends. And just because we're married doesn't mean we can't do fun stuff and still be 22. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's what we're excited about with the wedding, by the way, is there's going to be so many young people. And a lot of times you go to weddings these days and everybody's in their 30s, 40s because the bride and groom are in their 30s or 40s. And now this is a lot more dull. Yeah, we're going to have like, by the way, there's lots of little kids. So there's probably like over 20 kids under the age of 12. And then there's going to be all these 22-year-olds and 19-year-olds and 18-year-olds at our wedding because those are your friends.

I can't wait to get the bar tab for that one. So listen, maybe I'm pushing all these hot button issues for you and I'm going to get hit. But so if you talk about like what you guys have to navigate is like, where are we going to live and how are we going to kind of have two lives together? 22 years separate. Now you're going to get married. What are kind of some of the things you have to navigate to go, okay, how are we going to do this? What are some of the biggest issues you have to kind of figure out? I imagine where are you going to live and what else comes into play? So the, I mean, one of the big things is we both are going to work and where we work,

where we live depends on what jobs we have. And so something we've talked a lot about is where do we live? Which one of us do we follow? And making compromises for each other's careers. I mean, it's a big thing. It's not like I've had a career and now I'm ready to get married and be done. I'm just starting out. I'm 22. I'm not 28.

So that's something that we've talked a lot about. And we've had a few compromises there. Particularly following whoever makes more is really what we've decided to do. Yeah. That's a smart. Yeah. That was actually a bit of a decision for us as well. I mean, our decision was kind of made for me. I was up for a job. I told Sean, if I got the job, we moved to New York. That was when I was up for the view. Sean said, okay. And I said, if I don't get the job, and by the way, when I made the deal, I really thought I was going to get the job. And I said, okay, if I don't get the job,

we'll move to Hayward, Wisconsin, population 2000 with a big musky museum in the middle of the town. And I ended up not getting the job and I kept my promise. I moved to Hayward, Wisconsin, and we ended up, you came along and we ended up, you know, following Sean's career for, for, you know, a good 13, 14 years and more than that. And then, and then I got a job with Fox as the host of the weekend show on Fox and friends and, and Sean decided to stop his career and follow me. And so it's actually been a really great compromise. I feel like I got the good end of the stick because I really did enjoy, by the way, I was an at-home mom for 14 of those years before I started to work part-time at a nonprofit and then eventually at Fox

until I got the actual permanent hosting job. But I feel like I got to be a mom, be home, enjoy all that. And then I got to still have my career and late in life. But I'm really grateful for you, Sean, that you made that move for me. You're welcome. Listen, I sacrifice. I'm a team player. Again, to you two, we made that sacrifice. Rachel came with me. I don't think she would have thought that she would have ever got back to have a job in New York when she came to Hayward, Wisconsin, then Ashland, Wisconsin, then Wausau, Wisconsin.

But all things kind of play out. And I don't think there's balance at any one moment in life. But over the course of life, there becomes balance. And I think that's what we found here. I just want to add something about mom being a stay-at-home mom for 14 years. I mean, she was a stay-at-home mom for 14 years. I mean, she was a stay-at-home mom, but she was writing and she wrote a book and articles and, you know, had a little mini-series, I believe, online. So there was a lot of stuff that she was doing that told me you can be a stay-at-home mom and you can still do a lot of stuff and have a presence and

make a national impact from your, your kitchen and your little, you know, your little, from your kitchen table, we were in the kitchen table. We were in the middle of the woods. Remember we lived in up north, north, north, uh, Wisconsin, but yeah, I mean, I don't, that's something I'm going to take with me. I mean, that was a really impactful thing that I learned from you. Oh, that makes, that really warms my heart because I do believe that being a mom is different now than it was, say, in the 50s, where I think a lot of women did feel like they were constrained and couldn't do things. But the Internet, for all we complain about the Internet and social media and all the negative sides of it, it has truly liberated women to do a lot of things. And I had access, you know, you and I have the same access to information that people have, you know, at the New York times. And so that allows us to, to write and you're a writer, um, and, and be part of the

conversation. And I think that's, that's pretty amazing stuff. Um, let's talk a little bit about the wedding itself because, you know, there's a lot of movies that have been made about the wedding. There's a lot of stress around weddings. You pretty much pulled yourself out, both of you actually out of the wedding planning because you guys were in school. And so basically when we started having to plan the wedding, Evita, you said, mom, I'm busy. You just go do it. That makes it sound kind of mean. No, no, no. I mean, I don't think it was. But I but you just didn't have time no I I didn't I wanted to get married right away I said we can do a which is why I wanted to postpone it by the way

to September I thought graduate and then we'll have three months to like plan it and you could be part of it and you said no I just want to get married yeah we just wanted to start our lives right away and the you know you I said I'll do a really small one. We'll do a wedding at the house. And you guys are really nice and said, no, we'll do a really nice wedding for you. A bit like I wanted to do it at the house. And then a very good friend of mine, Jen, came to my house and said, around the time I was planning to do at the house. And she said, I thought I was going to do mine at the house.

And I'm so glad someone talked me out of it. By the way, that was Jen Pete's wife, Pete Hegseth's wife, Jen Hegseth. And she said, Rachel, don't do this to yourself. It's so stressful to have a wedding. Don't do it at your house. And so then we started looking for venues and we found a venue. But but in any case, you guys are now only now in the last probably week and a half before the wedding starting to get involved

in the wedding planning. Yeah. And we, I just, neither of us had the bandwidth from, from, you know, finals and me running the student publication, the Chicago thinker and every, and applying to law schools and everything that we were doing, we just didn't have the time. So I'm really grateful that you guys were able to help us out. We'll have more of this conversation after this. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month at Fizz, you always get more for your money.

Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. Well, I look at this too and I goes, as the father of the bride, it's a really big role. And I had to think through what venue do we go to, you know, what do we do for, for audio and visual, you know, what florist are we going to bring in for the flowers? It's a big, sure you were involved in all that. Oh my God.

I really did most of the wedding. This is what you will experience. So what's been interesting for me is I have been planning. She just got the microphone away from me. I did. That kind of ticked me off. He did nothing. Well, I shouldn't say that.

He wrote some checks. He cleaned our garage, which I wanted done before the wedding because we're going to have people coming over. But listen, I really did do a lot of the planning and thought I had everything done. And it was interesting how in the last week and a half, I've started to feel the stress of it. Like I thought I wasn't going to feel stressed.

I thought I did everything. But there's always these little details. Have you been feeling the stress, Michael, since you got back to our house? I have not. I don't usually get very stressed. I feel like most of the things that we're worried about, even if they didn't happen, the wedding would still happen. So this is something about Michael though. And he was known even when we were in high school to never get stressed out, like always, always good character.

I'm not surprised at all. I love that characteristic about you, Michael. I would say, I think that the, the Evita and Michael have been pretty stress-free kind of until probably the last week. And Michael still is stress-free. I think it's a really great trade. He's like rolling with the punches, like getting a suit. I'm getting some shoes. I'm getting a belt. Again, I'm going to look great, and I'm getting married, so I don't care.

I would say that Evita, though, again, a lot of brides get really stressed out for weeks or months or a year before the wedding. You really haven't, but it's, I would just say as the father of the bride, um, you have been stressed out for the last couple of days as I have, I have a very long list of things I still have to do. So yeah, it's a little, it's a little bit nerve wracking. Yeah. But part of the reason why that list is long is because we started so late. I mean, that's kind of like, you know, we wait, a lot of stuff had to wait until after you graduated and got back home, but that's the way it is. You don't want to go back to just, you know, again, this idea of how young you are and Michael, you brought up such a good point about taking your

faith seriously and unpack that a little bit for me and how that relates to you getting married young. Well, I guess a lot of kids we grew up with, you know, they were into partying, into doing everything that, you know, the church says you're not supposed to be doing. And I think as Catholics, just because rules are hard to follow doesn't mean you shouldn't be following them. And I think that's very important. So a lot of people your age would say, Hey, living together, that's a great way to just test out the situation, find out if you really want to be married to that. Now I know, Michael, that you would not, you, you would be facing, facing the wrath of Sean. If you decided to cohabitate with our daughter, but aside from that, a lot of kids know their parents don't want them to cohabitate,

don't want them to live together before they get married. And they do it anyway. Why didn't you guys do that, Evita, Michael? I think it's actually unfair to both people in a relationship. Even if you're just dating, you start making sacrifices for the other person. And if there's really no commitment in that relationship, you shouldn't be making those types of life altering decisions. And I also think also it was, it was situational too.

I mean, Michael and I were in college, so, and went to different colleges. So we were never going to be able to, to live together in the first place. Not that we would have, but we never would have, we couldn't do that. And that's part of why we wanted to get married so young because we wanted to be together. And we, we didn't want to have to make any decisions like that. We just said, let's, let's just get married now. So what I think is fascinating too, is I look at the two of you, and again, you're 22. And I think a lot of people, I'm one of them, you kind of, you grow up in your faith in the church, and then you kind of fall away from that a little bit. And then oftentimes people hopefully come back. And I see the two of you on a Sunday, the, it can be crazy things are going on, but the two of you, um, either separately or

together, mostly together, we'll, we'll always go to mass. And I think that's a unique part of a 22 year old couple that has such an important role of their faith inside of their marriage and their individual lives. And also when you talked about your long list on that list, I saw your list is that you guys want to go to confession before you get married. I mean, that says a lot about what this sacrament means to you. I have to say, that's probably the thing that has impressed me the most. And when we talk about all the things that we've had to do for the wedding,

if he does wedding is different. There's in our tradition, there is no, by the way, there's no bridal party. We have flower girls because it's kind of cheesy to be honest. Yeah. She doesn't like the whole bridal part, but it's also not part of our family tradition on my side. Um, it's just the, the bride is walked down by the groom and by the, by the father of the bride and the groom is walked down by his mom. And then that's it. And we have the little flower girls because we have all these little kids and they want to be part of it. But other than that, that's taken a lot of stress out of it. But I would say, I remember when I went to work on the flowers, they were like, well, what are the colors for this wedding? I'm like, colors? Are we supposed to pick colors? Like we didn't do anything like that. We really simplified the whole process.

And we've really, I think the most stress and the most time that we've devoted was to preparing the mass, preparing the sacrament of the matrimony at the mass. Yeah. I think when it's something that people will ask you about is like, what's your theme? In addition to what's your colors for one? Is there a theme now too? the theme is Catholic. Yeah. I love it. Because the thing that we've literally spent the longest working on is this booklet for the mass, the program for the program. Yes. That people can follow along really well. We put in a lot of really nice pictures.

That's the theme and explanations. Cause there's a lot of people that go to Catholic mass at a wedding. A lot of Catholics will fall away from the church or people who are non-Catholic that are going to be there. And we don't want we want them to feel welcome. And so I think it was really great how Vita and and Michael put so much time into preparing the program so that a non-Catholic can follow along our liturgy. When you're a cradle Catholic, Sean, you take for granted, you know, when to stand and sit and what to say and what the different, you know, three parts of the mass are. And we kind of lay it out. So people kind of understand it and can follow along and be part of it.

I look at the two of you and mom or Rachel talks about this a lot that opposites don't attract. It's actually, you know, the, the, when you have similar values, similar beliefs, similar interests, that's what really attracts people together. And yeah, it does keep them together. And for the two of you, I look at you, you share the same faith. You both come from good families, by the way, Michael comes from a great Catholic family. Amazing family. He's by the way,

he's half Cuban and your mom's background is Michael, Irish, just like Sean's. There's was there some English in there, some other things in there. I'm everything. Yeah, a little bit of everything. He definitely looks Cuban. And he's very handsome. He's very fit. Both of them love to work out together. That was a point that you work out together, you share similar politics, you share faith, you've had great examples of marriages in both of your homes. And so again, I think those things are really important when you find someone, not someone who's, you know, the polar opposite, but someone who shares similar beliefs and values. And it seems like the two of you have that together,

which for me, as a father is an important part when you go, hey, these two are gonna get married, is it going to be successful? Because you look at the pain of people who don't make it. And I look at you too and go, this is, this is really great together. Yeah. Well, I think one of the problems with marriages today is a lot of kids come from broken homes and they don't know really what a good marriage looks like. And speaking just from my family, you know, my parents aren't always, you know, having a great time. Sometimes they fight, but the most important thing is that they always stay together. Rachel and I never fight marriages. Aren't about fighting. We actually, we talked about the Michael. If, if, if everything is always perfect,

that's not normal. People have to have disagreement and they have to learn how to work through that and fight through it and still love each other through it. Yeah. Because yeah, that's, that's a healthy sign of any marriage. And if you take in a test that, it. Yeah. Because yeah, that's, that's a healthy sign of any marriage. And if you take in a test that, you know, Rachel and I will fight and disagree and they can get heated, but in the end, we're not going anywhere. We're a couple. Yeah. I think that's the most important thing is just always remembering that no matter what you're going to stay together. Right. I, I, I agree. In fact, when, whenever we hear people say, oh, we never fight Sean, I'm like, they're going to get divorced. Yeah. I know. I was, I was just going to say that my, I mean, that was one of the really early arguments that Michael and I had that we've never solved where he, he didn't,

he didn't like to fight at all. And I was, it was, it was actually not, it was not a, it was not a, it's not a bad thing. Actually. He just didn't want to have really fiery arguments. And I said, just didn't want to have really fiery arguments. And I said, no, we can't just let, let things, let things settle and then actually fester and get worse later on. We have to actually talk it out right away. And he's really come around to that. And now we, we don't, we don't let things fester. We talk about it as soon as possible. Yeah. I think, I think that's a, that's a really great, I won that one. Yeah. You won that fight. All right. I think that that's a really great, great trait in a marriage. And I think when I see you guys, to me, it just makes sense. Um, I know your, your, your Yaya Evita also talks about how, when she see even sees you guys in a picture, um, but also sees you guys together. She's like,

they're just made for each other. It's really obvious. I thought, you know, when for years I've thought about the idea of you getting married and, um, I was really worried about Sean because I knew it would be really hard for Sean to see you get married. And Michael has made it easy because Michael is the perfect match for you wait let me finish let me finish i know you i know i'm gonna let you go in a second but i wanted to say this to michael because i think it's important michael you are the perfect match for her and i feel like for me too i feel like i know if there was a burning building and avita was in it i feel like you would run in and get her i i don't, I don't feel like that. I know you would. And for me, that's,

that says everything about you and about how I feel about leaving Evita in your care. I don't know about burning buildings, but I know the burning streets of Kenosha, Michael was there to protect Evita and a show and reported for the Federalist. They went together and obviously my you know michael's a a strapping lad if you will and so yeah they went together and actually he's he's yoked and actually vita wanted to go and rachel said you can't go unless michael goes with you um and so they and so they went i wasn't really sure how much protecting i'd be able to do

down there besides be a good road bump, but I would have done my best. You didn't have a gun, right? No, I did not. I, I was too young to be carrying a weapon, but he just had two guns. Yeah. Well, he did have, he did bring a knife. I mean, that was really the best we could do, but I w I mean, I couldn't have gone without Michael. So I look, so again, I'm just going to father, but you mentioned it'll be easy for me it will not be easy for me though Michael would make it he does make it easy um he makes it easier easier but um I am probably gonna cry I cry at movies even bad movies I'll cry at um and so I I'm hoping that I can make it down the aisle with you to give you off to Michael without crying which probably won't

happen I'll hopefully be able to make a toast to both of you without, you know, sobbing or crying, but I'm going to do my best. I'm going to put on my fighter face and see if I can make it through it. I would say when I left Congress, I had to do a couple of speeches after I announced I was going to leave and I had to go speak and was in Wausau and Southeast Wisconsin and I'd stand up and I would say like a sentence, I would start to cry in front of like a group of people. I loved, I loved the job and I was leaving it. Um, and so this is, this will be worse. I'm going to say, let's talk about before we go, we have to talk about the one controversy, one of the bigger controversies we had around

planning the wedding, which is Evita is not into the, all the, the wedding stuff and the traditions. And I said, we paired a lot of stuff down, but the one thing we didn't even think we had to talk about was the first dance. I mean, who does not have a first dance with their husband and with their father for the bride, um, before, you know, at the reception and avita said no she said no no i did not say no initially you said no we had to talk you into it okay what i none of us know how to dance that's true remotely good and actually michael has threatened to do like silly things during it to like to make to make it worse so i don't i don't really i was not excited about doing a burst dance and i was apparently told i'm required to so what can i say but also i'm not

gonna say she said no and i said your father is has waited 22 years and he's paid for this wedding and the only thing he asked for is a dance. You're going to dance with your mom. Well, he did not ask for it. You asked for it. Well, she knew. Well, it's in full songs. It's 45 seconds.

But I mean, again, I think obviously Michael and Evita should dance. We got them to say yes to that. Now Evita and I get a dance at some point. Michael can dance with his mother. I guess I'll dance with his mother. I'm just kidding. But I think but I think that that's, that's very nice. We had to kind of push Evita into that, which is actually a good thing. It'd be nice. We can all see you dance for the first time and take pictures and celebrate this wonderful new fruitful union.

So last minute here, what are, I mean, besides your to-do list of things, Evita, you have a few things you still want to get. You're not happy with your rehearsal dinner dress. You want to get another rehearsal dinner dress. It's not another one. I don't have one. Well, yeah, we didn't like the one that you brought. So, but anyway, we're, we're, we're, you're going to get a rehearsal dinner dress today. But other than that, what, what is stressing you out you guys in these last few days or what do you, what do you, what what do you what would you recommend to somebody in the same phase you are right now, days before you're away? Honestly, I don't know. I mean, I have so much stuff to do. It's just the list that's stressing me out. And I can't give anyone

advice because I'm still stressed about it. So if you have advice for me, send me an email. And I'm on social media. Yeah. Send's a medium. Michael, the no stress Michael. I wouldn't say anything stressing me out, but I am starting to get a little nervous. I don't know why, but I am. A little nerves are actually really good. And I think, I'm just going to say, I think it's really cool.

So I've spent 50 years in Wisconsin. We just moved to New Jersey, as we mentioned in our previous podcast and multiple podcasts because of Rachel's job. Evita and Michael are from Wisconsin, Wausau, Wisconsin. Michael's parents are from Wisconsin. My parents are all there. We have people kind of coming in from all over the country. And I was surprised at how many people were willing to come to New Jersey and celebrate this wedding with the two of you. And again, I think it's a testament to the friendships and relationships that you've built. And it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to, you know, the wedding, you know,

dinner, but also a great party. And hopefully we'll have some special guests drop by. I think one of the nicest things that I remember Vita saying about Michael is that even months ago when they were, you know, in school still that he would, she said that you would think about the wedding and you would get really excited. And, um, we're really excited for you both. And, um, I really, my, my thing is for the next couple of days, I'm going to try my best not to be anxious and to really take this in and really try and enjoy it. Everyone I've talked to has said, really take this in and really try and enjoy it. Everyone I've talked to has said, that's the key to a great wedding is to just really appreciate kind of step outside of it for a minute and appreciate this is a really precious time. These, these days leading up and of course the day of,

and that we should really do all we can to not stress on the little things, because as Michael said, so eloquently, even if those things don't happen, you're going to get married. And that's, that's really what it's all about. And I just want to say, we're so proud of both of you, Michael, we love you. We already love you as a son. You fit in so well in our family. It's just such a natural thing. And, um, all the kids love him.

All the kids love Michael. Um, and he's so good with them. I like him more than me. They love you, but you know, they the kids love Michael. Um, and he's so good with them. I like him more than me. They love you, but you know, they can climb on Michael. Um, and they have a great time with him. So from an outside perspective, I would have to say that you guys as a family are even better than what is on TV. It's really amazing. That's so nice to hear, but Michael, Michael sees the good, the bad and the ugly. So that's really a compliment coming from michael so anyway we want to just congratulate you both we love you we're looking forward maybe we'll do like a you know we'll talk next next week how the wedding went for a little

bit and and and give our our listeners a little bit of insight into how it all went down as we say we always talk about what goes on at our kitchen table. This has been a big topic of the kitchen table for a very long time, the planning. And now we're at the moment of the wedding of two great young adults. And so we talk about it. And so we want to share it with you today as we talk about the last couple of days as we go into consuming the Duffy household and well worth it. There's nothing more important than, you know, your oldest daughter getting married to an amazing, handsome, intelligent dimension. He's a math major, um, at, at UW Madison, um, amazing guy from an amazing family. And, you know, we love that he's also Cuban. So Cuban, he's Catholic. He's from Wisconsin. So conservative. He's Republican. Come on. I mean, you did well, you did so well with Michael. So with that, everybody, listen, thank you for joining us at this special edition of the kitchen table.

Again, talking to a beat and Michael, they're getting married. We want to share kind of what happens at our kitchen table with all of you. And the last thought process that goes in at the Duffy household before this wedding goes off. We're excited for this day and excited for the two of them to start their life together um if you like our podcast you can rate review subscribe wherever you get your podcast uh we'd appreciate that and until next time and after maybe a little hangover um we'll come back from the kitchen table with so much needed coffee yeah we'll see you around of how the wedding went. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye.