Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 51 -The 2020 Wedding Etiquette Guide

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

In this episodes the guys talk about wedding etiquette... for probably longer than you expect them to. That's really it! And as always, big thanks to Skillshare, get 2 free months of unlimited access to thousands of classes at Skillshare.com/qq 

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, a podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other basic questions and give each other acidic answers. I am a writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, the book, and the co-host of this podcast, and also a person who in middle school decided his thing was going to be that he liked french fries a lot, Daniel O'Brien, and I am joined as always by my co-host mr soren bowie soren say hello buddy i'm soren bowie i'm a writer performer emmy awards watcher and uh no

owner of many arrowheads that i found and then just left in what i like to call the desert museum oh hey where do you find these arrows uh? It's the Pacific, the Northwest corners of like Arizona, Northeast corner of New Mexico, like Shiprock area, Navajo reservation. A lot of old flint knaps and arrowheads left over from like the Anasazi. So these things are ancient. Oh, and how do you, is that a thing that you just um forgive my ignorance you just come across them in like the sand or are you going into a cave yes it's much rarer that you find them in the sand it's not unheard of but yeah you go into old ruins and uh you can find some pottery in there

a lot of it's just kind of like podge pottery shards but um you can find arrowheads in there but the idea is that you can pick it up you can look at it and then you put it back and you don't take it home uh why is that so grave robbing basically oh that makes sense um we had this is like the the jersey-ass public school version of of real adventures where we would go to sites that were specifically set up in new jersey as like field trips and you would learn a lot about native american culture there and you would do like projects together you would uh put together a longhouse you know a bunch of middle schoolers or like maybe fourth or fifth grade

putting together a longhouse and then they're like great you did that and you learned a little bit about this culture and now you're gonna go and you're gonna you're gonna dig in this area that we set aside and see if you find anything and uh it was rigged which i didn't know i didn't know that that it was rigged but like you dig in there and i was like holy fucking shit i found an arrowhead and they're like that's very good yeah now i'm gonna talk to you about the arrowhead and i was like this is so cool i'm the one who found it and they're like yeah okay now give that back because the next field trip is coming in 35 minutes and some some mark from that school needs to find it next some rube yeah i so the anasazi ruins that i'm going to yeah first of all

like the it's just these this lattice work of canyons all over that area and it's a maze of stuff you you could spend your whole life exploring there and not see every single ruin that's there and some of them have been lost for a very long time and haven't been seen in uh there's not great directions on how to get there but there's like accounts of somebody finding them at one point or another um but you go to all these places and there's just tons of old stuff i mean you'll always find the normal stuff like this petrified corn and everything but then you're also going to find some pottery you find we've been one before where we found um bracelets and necklaces made out of like yucca and human hair and a lot of flint naps which are the what they're chipping off of the flint to get an arrowhead or like obsidian

naps which are what they make most of them out of they're like black glasses like dragon glasses based off of sure um and you chose the right thing to make this accessible to me. And we even, we found human remains in there too, which is crazy. Yeah. You can find like femurs and things like that. So this is, it's also, there's some bad juju around it. I don't know how much you believe in that kind of thing, but especially with the Anasazi, the reason you don't touch anything is because you want to preserve it for other people. You want other groups to be able to see this piece of history.

But also because there's rumors that if you take something, it just curses you. And that's it for you. Now, how accessible is this land? Is this something that I could stumble upon one day and just like wander into these ruins and find stuff and take stuff and if so are there like signs that warn people not to take things the answer because like I wouldn't know

if I wasn't talking to you right now I might just take a trip to Arizona one day and realistically get drunk and fuck off into the desert and then be like oh shit look at this a femur that's gonna be that's gonna look great at my home but i wouldn't do that if there was a sign that was like hey leave the fear there are no signs where they are no signs but but no it depends on where you are so like the stuff that you'd actually stumble into in an afternoon or like

mesa verde or like places chaco canyon that are like these places are established this is where the anastasi were and there's like roped off areas you're not allowed in the kivas like which are like these little ceremonial holes and you're not allowed any of the rooms or anything like that you'd have to really go you'd have to be it'd have to be intentional for you to go find these ones that are not blocked off at all or you could just walk in there you can you can like mud all that's made out of clay inside these canyon walls to like give you an idea of it they're little chipped out areas in the rock for footholds and handholds where they would climb up into these caves in the walls of the canyons. And then in there, there are these mud cities, there's houses, uh,

Kivas, all kinds of stuff up there that is all packed in with mud and rock and straw. And you can go up there and you can actually like see their hand prints. You can put your hand actually like see their handprints. You can put your hand into one of their handprints. And these, you know, this stuff was made in like 900 AD. So it feels very historic. More historic than anything else in the United States. Right.

Well, listen, that's all fascinating when I'm feeling small and inadequate. Thanks to Skillshare for supporting Quick Question. Break up the routine of a day spent indoors. Explore workshops, classes, and more in topics like graphic design, illustration, productivity, and entrepreneurship. Get two free months of premium membership at Skillshare.com slash QQ. That's two free months of membership at Skillshare dot com slash QQ. So let's let's pivot right into the thrust of the show. We like to ask each other questions. But before that, we've been doing this quarantine check in. Do you have any updates? It's OK. I do. Oh, OK. That's even better. I lied before. I went to San Luis Obispo and I saw my brother

and his family and my kid finally got to play with some other kids. That's great. Did your, uh, I don't mean to put your brother on the spot that he, did he fly? No, they, so my brother doesn't live in New York anymore. Yeah. They moved. This is basically where we went was halfway between his place and our place. So it was a drive for both of us, but it was only like three and a half hours.

his place in our place so it was a drive for both of us but it was only like three and a half hours and then uh we both of us both families the two weeks leading up just didn't go out at all didn't like interact with anybody didn't go get groceries didn't do any of that stuff and then we went met there we knew we were clean in fact they got uh his wife got a test before they came and we should have done the same thing we didn't and so we knew of pretty good confidence that both families were COVID negative and then we got to hang out for the weekend on this lake and it was the best thing

I'll bet that sounds really great and I bet Ronan was so excited and it was just something to look forward to and that's like it sounds silly but it was just something to look forward to and that's like it sounds silly but i just needed something to look forward to yeah i felt that way i didn't i have a uh a driving trip coming up but but this past week i uh went jet skiing i rented a jet ski as part of a tour uh to just go to like the drive right up to the statue of liberty and right up

to the brooklyn bridge and then just like just be out on the water for an hour and it's a very simple thing but it was still it was so different from what i'm used to which has been picking one of the four different places in my apartment to sit. Right. That it was, I was like truly laughing like a super villain while going fast on a jet ski. Cause I'm, cause I'm, I'm, I'm going very fast and I'm outdoors and I'm getting splashed with water and the sun is on me.

And, and it's been so long since any of that has happened that I, I, and I'm also like realizing in the moment oh I can be really loud and no one's gonna be mad at me because it's not an apartment so that's why I was like ha ha ha ha ha like a truly insane

person just laughing on a jet ski like an unpracticed villain who didn't have a laugh worked out yet and was like gonna workshop some things right I was like do I sound evil? Or like, would you not fear me, Batman? Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

On paper, it sounds the same. I also learned, because they, you know, you do like basic verbal training in advance of a jet ski. And they're like, have you ridden a jet ski before? And I was like, yeah. Which is true. When I was 12, I rode on the back of a jet ski that my brother drove but it was it's one of those things that i just with no investigation was like i bet i'm good at that and i was so bad early on like bad enough within the as soon as you are allowed to hit the throttle because you start in like a no wake zone you're not allowed to like put too much gas into it i guess because you're being

safe um as soon as we got past that point and you're allowed to go fast i'm watching everyone zooming forward and i'm just jerking wildly everywhere And like enough that one of the helpers had to come back and talk to me. And I'm bizarrely like mad, I guess, at the universe. Like, I don't think it's my fault. And when the helper gets there, I say, why am I bad at this? What's his answer?

Her answer was, look, you just need to relax and that just also sent me out i was like that everyone says that to me that can't be the solution to all of my problems we need to think of something else because i'm not gonna relax listen fix your jet ski not fix the water there's be another way. I found a workaround for everything else in my life. Give me the one for this. So why were you jerking around? She was right. I mean, the thing was,

I would go too hard on the throttle too early. And I would also like, if I veered in any one direction that I didn't like, I would overcorrect by turning it to the left or the right. And if you overcorrect to the left, then it's like, well, no, now I'm going in a circle, so I need to fix this really quick with the right. And that was too hard, too.

So she was, her advice was correct. It's still just like, you don't need to, you're not fighting the thing. You just keep a steady uh steady hand on the throttle and don't jerk it too wildly and you'll be fine and eventually i did that and uh things were better but but for a while i was like this is my relaxing thing no forgive me for not knowing this because i don't come from water people what's the difference between a wave runner and a jet ski i have no idea and were you standing up or sitting down

i was i was sitting down the whole time um which is another thing i learned about uh riding a jet ski in your 30s is just like the different parts of my body that are sore the next day which is surprising because i feel like i was sitting the whole time and meanwhile like the the woman who was leading us was standing on one foot on the jet ski with her other foot back behind her in a fancy yoga pose to show off and i sat for an hour and woke up the next day and was like oh well this isn't going to be a workout day because my ass, legs, and back are too sore from sitting down for an hour. Was it your lower back that was sore? Yes.

I think probably you're getting rocked around a lot out there on the water. Yeah. Because you're like riding through other people's wakes and things like that. Yeah, certainly. And so now this is like under the Brooklyn Bridge and stuff, right?

Yeah. And we also, we get to the, we saw the Statue of Liberty from a bunch of different angles we also we get to the um we saw the statue of liberty from a bunch of different angles and then we get behind it nice and the the the leaders were like this is our final stop and a lot of people jump off their jet skis and go into the water there aren't a lot of people in the world who can say they swam behind the Statue of Liberty. And everyone was apprehensive. And I'm like immediately taking off my, the thing that is chaining me to the jet ski and like not even waiting to find out if this is a bit or not and topple myself over the

jet ski into the water. Cause I was so excited to be in water. And it was like such a simple pleasure for someone who's been cooped up inside to just be like, ah ah i haven't felt cold ocean water on my body in so long and like you you really you take for granted any different sensation that you haven't been around for a while yeah i think that it's i'm just saying that with my own child when we went to san luis abyss but we went to like the beach for a little bit and he hadn't been near the ocean in a while and it was like it was really fucking him up a little bit and i was like

oh yeah you haven't had the exposure in a while you don't know these senses anymore um but dan that's brooklyn water and like new york water that's okay right you're not getting gangrene from that no okay i mean we'll see don't know. Those are shipping lanes though, right? Yeah. I've been on a ferry from Liberty Island. Is it Liberty Island or Staten Island? No, no. Liberty Island.

Wait, what? I mean, like they're both things. What statue of Liberty is? The Statue of Liberty is on Liberty Island. So I've taken the ferry from Liberty Island to Battery Park and back and forth. And I can say that I've looked down at the water and thought, I don't want to swim in that. That was water you just jumped in, no problem? Absolutely.

Oh, great. Okay. Felt great, no regrets. Good. Folks, we love doing this show, and if you want to support us, there are a couple of ways you can do that. One of them is, of course,

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using a Skillshare class. We've talked about a bunch of classes that we've done in the past, but lately I've been taking this class from a user named Emily Henderson. It's style your space, creative tips and techniques for interior design. That's in their lifestyle section. And it's all about rearranging the space of my apartment. And I know that sounds corny, but when you've been sitting in the same couple of spots in your place for several months, you get a little bit antsy. And this class about rearranging your space with intention and creativity has really opened

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classes at Skillshare.com slash QQ. One more time, because I love this URL, Skillshare.com slash QQ. Let's get into the show now, though. Soren, I have a quick question for you. Shoot. And as always, I have many caveats. I want, because this could get personal, and I want you to be completely honest with me and not spare my feelings, because it's going to be fine. It's in the past. It doesn't matter. There's a wedding wedding you're a single

person you get an invite to the wedding with a plus one am I really supposed to use that plus one if I'm not in a relationship and I'm bringing this up to you because I brought a friend to your wedding. And I genuinely want to know the etiquette. It's a lot of this was born out of I'm watching. I've been been rewatching New Girl in the mornings when I have my morning coffee. And there's like a whole season where they have a bunch of weddings. And there's like a sitcom trope thing about you get a plus one for a wedding. If you're a single guy, then you bring someone that you think you can. Impressed by having them at a wedding if you're a single guy then you bring someone that you think you can

impress by having them at a wedding and then parlay that into sex with that person yeah that's not what i did i i've never used a wedding as like a date kind of thing i've always used my plus one at a wedding as like this is a person that i know will be fun at a wedding because they're a fun person and like i can rely upon them to get up and dance and do things and like the the woman i brought to your wedding the two of us we've been to six weddings together and because we just like have fun at weddings and we're good at weddings but i'm now in my head about it that like am i not supposed to do that? Because in my 20s, I figure like, oh, I've got a plus one.

They wouldn't have given that to me if they didn't want me to use it. And I'm going to use it and bring someone that I know I will have fun with. But am I wrong about this story? Hold on. Let me get this straight. about this story. Hold on, let me get this straight. You came to my wedding and you stayed in a bell tower that a bat also lived in and you didn't get laid? No. That does not surprise you at all. We didn't want to, the bat didn't seem to approve. The haunted hotel that made you stay in with a bat in your room?

I stayed in the bell tower with a bat. And when we checked into our bell tower, I went down to the front desk and I was like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but there was a bat outside of our room. And they were like, he's back. I thought, oh, okay. He's the ranking member in this suite now. That's fun. Yeah.

It was a very rustic experience at my wedding. So let me give you a little peek very rustic experience at my wedding. So let me, let me give you a little peek behind the curtain of planning a wedding. Before I answer your question, you have to, you start making your invite list and you start going with the people that you want, you need to invite. And then you get to the people you want to invite second, because for obvious reasons, it's mandatory for those first people. A lot of those people that on the, that first part that you need to invite are not people you actually want there. They're like distant family members that your parents would be hurt if you didn't invite. And so you've got this like group of people who are like not really your buddies.

Some of you haven't seen in over a decade. And you want to invite just your friends and have it be a big fun experience that you're going to remember forever. But you also just like there's this looming threat of aunts and uncles on you. And right. You know that if you don't invite, uh, Fran from work, that's going to be a real problem for your mom. And, and, uh, and that'll never go away. So you're, you're, once you've figured out that negotiation, what you'll generally do

is you'll get to the people that, you know, you to invite, the people you really, really want to invite. And then you have this other tier of people that are like people you'd also really like to be there, but you can't justify it. And you have your number of like, whatever, how many guests you've got, you've got like 80, 120. And like what you've got to do then, and this is the secret that a lot of people do, is they will send out the invites to the first group. They'll wait and see which people send back the notifications that they can't come. Then you've got your second tier that you can go to because now you've got more space. That's why invites go out so early for weddings. Also because you want to be so far out in advance that people don't have anything on their calendar.

But this is a big part of it and so if somebody and you give a plus one to everybody because it would be weird to send it to single people and be like oh by the way you can't bring anyone especially if they don't know anyone else at the wedding you want them to have somebody there that they're also going to have fun with right so you send out to the first group you get those those uh those information back. And then based on that, you invite how many or many people you can from the second. And if somebody sent back a thing that said, I'm not using my plus one, that's a good news for the people. But it doesn't necessarily but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they want.

So, for instance, in my wedding, you knew two other people, maybe three, which is not a lot. And so you bring somebody that you also really like. We want you to do that. Like we want it to be that kind of experience.

So I will say that if you bring somebody, that's what they expect. If you don't bring somebody, that's icing on the cake for them. Okay. That's good to know. I feel okay about this.

I've certainly never done the thing that Ted on How I Met Your Mother does, where it's like he gets an invite, he's single, and he just blindly says plus one on the hopes that he will start a relationship between sending back the, the RSVP and the actual wedding date, because that seems, uh,

shitty. Yeah. It also fucks up the count. If, if they don't come, then you've got, it's, it ends up being weird at the table distribution and stuff like that.

Um, it just, it's a strange, like the thing that the context that I hadn't thought of it in was what's coming up with, uh, in these new girl reruns right now where they're talking specifically about like wedding photos where it's like, oh good. Here's my, my sister and brother-in-law. Here are all my friends. And here's Daniel's friend from college or whatever, you know, like just this person

who is going to be part of your wedding photo album i don't know if yeah if if you've got any pictures of her in your wedding photo album but but that's the thing that i am now hyper conscious of a couple 30 years later going through their photos and being like oh yeah he uh he met her at a bar and thought it would be a fun, spontaneous date to bring her to our fucking wedding. I think no, I think, first of all, she won't be in a lot of the pictures. There are going to be people at your wedding that you don't know anyway. And if you're I mean, I think I know you pretty well. I think you're probably pretty great at weddings. I think that that would be a really good opportunity for you to showcase your best self. So I wouldn't begrudge you if you chose to do something like that.

I don't think anybody would. All right. Oh, but I do have a question for you. And this is not one of my original quick questions, but the next time you, I don't know if you've noticed yet, but for your brothers, uh, if you get to look at any of the wedding photos that are on their walls or whatever in their houses, see if you can, if there's somebody in one of those pictures, that's like no longer part of their life at all, because we have one, I think probably everybody does.

A sibling has a significant other who is not, they're not married or whatever. And then all of a sudden that person a month later is just gone. Yeah. I mean, I, i certainly know that information um but dan i do have a quick question for you if we're if we're through on the wedding talk um the only thing i was gonna do because i don't have a whole lot more meat for this episode uh just if there's any other wedding etiquette things that uh you have just because like i

it's not a thing that's really taught like like i i feel like any time that i the first time that i was invited to a um like an engagement party uh i just went and like it was a family related thing and i was like oh that's cool I'll wear a nice shirt and my I was in college at the time and my parents like bought a bonus gift off the registry for me to give because they were like this is what you're supposed to do at engagement parties and we didn't know if you're gonna do it or not and I was like oh okay cool I these uh glasses are from me I fucking guess. I don't know.

But that's the thing that I found out just from like the actual doing of it. There's not, it's not a class anywhere. So everything else that I know about weddings is just stuff that I've tried to piece together from accidentally knowing when to ask the right questions and just like learn by doing essentially yeah they're like how much you're supposed to give if you're if you're giving money and all the etiquette surrounding that kind of nonsense yeah i think it all depends on how old you are too but but there's some definitely some tacit wedding etiquette that nobody ever talks about and that only comes up on the day one is is, is this one that seems so simple. And, and when you have somebody who knows what they're doing and they actually do it, you're like, oh yeah, of course. When the bride comes down,

everybody stands up and you don't sit down until the person at the front says everybody be seated. And, but if you don't have somebody to lead that, it's chaos. It's like some people stand up halfway down while she's halfway down the aisle some people do that little hover over their seat like oh yeah okay i like to my move is i like to walk with the bride when she starts coming down because they i don't know if you've been to a wedding in a wedding in a while the the brides are so slow you just push her along a little bit look follow my pace follow my pace look at this bop b know that that dress has enough give to it that you can you can make these big strides with me um yeah and then and then you fucking just stand there and you wait till the person at the front says be seated every they're gonna tell you what to do after that point but stand up

as soon as you hear the music you stand up you turn around then you wait then you then you sit down and like when people don't get it right it drives me crazy at weddings um another one is if you are young you stay till the end if you're like an older family member or like you're not that generation you're clearly not on the same team then you're allowed to leave early in fact it's highly encouraged yeah you that's the thing that i feel like I learned from the woman that I brought to your wedding because she, separate from being a person I've known for a very long time, she professionally makes cakes, often wedding cakes, and has worked at wedding venues and has been around weddings for so many years of her life

that I was like, we are in our 20s. That means that we're partying, we're dancing. We're not like going crazy or anything like that, but like you want this to feel like a very long, fun party for the bride and groom where people are smiling and dancing. And there are pictures that when you look back on them, it looks like everyone is having the greatest time of their lives, which very often they are. Yes. Yes. You don't want to be in a situation where, you know, like you throw a birthday party, people are going to bounce in

and bounce out. And that's sort of expected. And you know that that's, that's how it goes. But a wedding feels so final. It hypothetically should be this one, only this one day in your life where you do this and you want the people around you to feel like they're having a good time. And so if they're like ready to go, as soon as dinner's over, you're a little bit hurt. Uh, you, you won't say it or anything, but you're like, what you're okay. This isn't fun for you. I get it. Okay, go. Um, so you want people to stick around and you want them to feel like they couldn't possibly leave like no way this is the best day of my life too this is so much fun and that's this that's the um ambience that you create for the bride and groom like that's your job there

and when you're young yeah uh now i'm regretting a wedding that i went to again with the same person i'm telling you man six. We're a good team. I was a senior in college. We went to a wedding and we stayed for a good amount of time, but we didn't close the place down. And neither of us drank too much because we had to drive because we were, we, we'd already got tickets to see Spider-Man 3 on opening night. I was like, this wedding is great, but it's opening night, you understand, for the third,

and I'm going to guess, best Spider-Man movie. It's got Thomas Hayden Church. He was nominated for an Oscar last year, for crying out loud. It's got the Venom storyline. How could it be bad? It's finally got Venom. How is anyone ever in the world going to make a bad Venom storyline. How could it be bad? It's finally got Venom. How is anyone ever in the world going to make a bad Venom movie? Yeah, that's, that's, I would be, I would be, I'd feel a little jilted at that.

Sure. But that's also, it's your job as a bride and groom to set up a scenario in which people do want to stay. Like you build an environment that's going to be fun for people and if you don't yeah then you you should understand that somebody would rather see spider-man 3 than stay any longer at your wedding right which you guys did a great job for your wedding you made it impossible for anyone to leave spider-man 3 we really did make it possible so we we we took over a small town that was out in the middle of the woods that didn't have cell phone reception so no one could be calling you to be like let's go

do something else and you're just kind of stuck there and that's by design it was really great because you knew that everyone you saw in this town was here for this wedding there was like no one who was who was like no i'm the local murderer or whatever. I don't know. Everyone, everyone who was staying there was like, it was like, it was just wedding town USA somehow. Yeah. And I think that it really helped it. And this is fortuitous in a way that I didn't anticipate at the time was that it, the first night, the, the barbecue that we had in lieu of a rehearsal dinner where everyone was invited it just this torrential rain and lightning and it was outside and everyone had to huddle in this tiny little gazebo and people who didn't know each other are shoulder to shoulder chest to chest

just like oh hi hi okay uh how do you know them and there's there's an icebreaker right there and then after that it was like they'd shared trauma. They'd all survived this thing together. It also cleared up. It didn't rain the entire night. No, but it was certainly, there was a period of time where you could not be outside. And so everyone was forced into this little wooden gazebo. And then after that, everyone was like, it's like everybody knew each other after that.

Now we have this shared experience together. We did this thing that was very intimate. that was, that's sort of funny. We're strangers and we did this intimate thing. And now it's the, the vibe is different. Everybody feels like they know each other and it was really helped out. Great wedding Soren. Thank you. That's, oh, sorry.

That's the other thing. And you do a very good job of this, Daniel, is anytime that the wedding comes up after the wedding, you always say that's the best wedding I've ever been to. Listen, man, I got family listening to this. You can't reveal all of my secrets, buddy. I'm just saying you've done that for me a lot. And I'm sure I see through it, but that's like, I want that. I want to hear that.

I want you to do that. I want you to come up with like a little vignette of like what happened and like, oh, this is my, I like this part and best wedding I've ever been to. And that's what people want to hear. We after our wedding had some family who are friends of Colleen's parents who um who uh sent us a text that was like basically begrudging the fact they had to travel so far uh for this thing and immediately we were like down on ourselves we're like we shouldn't have done it here this was a bad idea we forced everyone to go there um this oh we shouldn't have done this and then

what we need is the positive reinforcement you everybody regrets something about their wedding but if somebody everyone around them is telling them no honestly it's best wedding i've ever been to you're like okay yeah yeah it was worth the 20 to 100 grand that i spent on right if i have one regret at your wedding it's's that our former boss, Jack, kept making fun of me because I used my iPad 3 to take pictures because I didn't have a digital camera or a phone on my camera. Like, iPad 3 was the most exciting thing that I bought for my life at the time. So I was like, look, it's a camera that I could take anywhere

and it goes on the internet and it calls me big dragon. It calls me big dragon. And I was so excited to have a camera slash internet device that was, you know, no question, 10 inches long. And when you're a guy standing close to the front row holding up what looks like a modestly sized book to take pictures of a bride sure Jack's gonna throw some shit at you yeah that's fair but the pictures were great that's good that's I'm glad that you got good photos of my wedding I'd love to see those

someday they're more for. I don't know how to get them onto the, onto like, like the actual computer, you know, they're just on the iPad computer. Yeah. It sounds expensive to move them. Um, but yeah, I, I talk your ear off about weddings. I could tell you all the mistakes we made too, along the way that I'd be like, oh, this is what you just should do in your wedding. In planning it, in planning it or in, in weddings that you attended? No, that we messed up. I don't go with an eye for judgment

when I go to other weddings. I love weddings. I do too. And I will just go and I will just have a good time there. I just have these things from my own wedding where I can look back on

and be like, shouldn't have done that. Ooh, we should have done that. I mean, you can say them. This is a... I can't stress enough how unprepared I am for this podcast we did a uh our kiss was really really quick um because we felt like people were hold on hold on let me pull up my ipad let's even oh yeah that's that's it looked like you were like that was a test run it looked like that she had like, you were trying to get lint off her face and you couldn't use your hands for some reason.

You were trying to like get it out of there real quick. Yeah. We did a very just short kiss. And then afterwards, like people commented on it. I was like, really? Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, we're supposed to, I mean I mean we would been together for 11 years before we got married is that the people I'm so sorry the people who commented on that is that

oh it's a general it's like a good good natured ribbing okay I'm trying to to figure out like what is the tier of intimacy of a friend yes where you would accept them saying hey great wedding one note really make up really milk it next time they're saying things like are you sure this is something you really want to do like it was a ribbing it was like oh like oh oh that you had to touch her gross um because all we did was like a little peck and then we were down the aisle again. We're just like moving things along. And if I had to do it over again, I would put a little more pageantry into it. Is that so?

This is, again, I am tragically unmarried and I've just... Let me check CelebDater. Hold on. unmarried and i've just let me check celeb dater hold on my only experience at weddings is being a hit at all of them officiating one of them best man at two and and just really really planning for one um so forgive me if this is a dumb or too intimate question but uh in the adam sandler drew barrymore to hand her the wedding singer uh there's a whole discussion about what kind of kiss they're gonna do in the ceremony is that is that a common thing or just do you just wing it or what i don't know we winged it and that's maybe the problem oh uh i i assume other color couples must do that if you're gonna do two months of

dance lessons just to do like a very slow fox trot together yeah you'd probably plan the kiss too yeah it's it seems like a very strange thing to be like all right this is the kiss that everyone's going to be looking at what do we want to do with it yes i mean like for me because i come from a comedy background we'll do one as written and then like one fun one one that's just for us one where i put bunny ears behind your head as we're kissing oh that'll get a laugh um yeah i i think maybe the if i had it to do over again it's a very narrow line to walk because you don't want it to be also be too like lusty right you don't want to be too short you don't want to be too lusty you want it to be also be too like lusty right you don't want to be too short you don't

want to be too lusty you want it to seem like ah now that's love and that's a hard note to hit we didn't even try though we basically opted out which is fine because like i think going too hard in the other direction is like i've been at weddings where i felt like i was seeing something that i'm not supposed to see that was like oh they're oh they're getting like like horned up right now oh no i shouldn't be here for this this is this is very troubling for me to see am am i getting horned up um and then like uh we're we almost didn't have a dance floor. We almost had people dance on brick, which is basically where this tent, where the dance

on, uh, I remember you're telling me about this. You wanted everyone to dance only to the song brick by Ben folds five. Yeah. You wanted that. It was, uh, you would break it up at one point. Uh, when the cake came out, you would do happy birthday. But then otherwise it was wall to wall brick. Well, DJs are so expensive, you see. Yeah.

So if you just get your own iPad, I mean, what's your thing called, Dan? Your iPad? iPad 3. iPad 3. Get your own iPad 3. You put the song on there. And then you put it on repeat. You can do that.

There's a there's a there's a button you could just loop it over and over again it doesn't cost any extra um we almost had a brick dance floor which would have just been a nightmare and we realized it not until like the the last week and then we very in a rushed way ordered a dance floor that could be installed there it's i've been to weddings before where you're like you're dancing on you're in they'll do like a warehouse wedding or something like that and then you're dancing on concrete and it just feels different you can't move around the same way you can't do your slides i know i'm gonna hate this answer um do you remember what that dance floor cost no i want to say i'll just on top of my head i want to say 250 but i can't oh i don't hate that

at all yeah it's it was really that was really reasonable the difference between folding plastic chairs and like vinyl chairs which you don't think there's a huge upgrade there in texture crazy upgrade in terms of price yeah there's a lot of different ways that they get you at weddings um that's a whole other thing ways that they get you at weddings. That's a whole other thing. Anything else about Soren's wedding? Your vows were great. I remember...

It's weird. It's the kind of thing that I would feel tremendous pressure doing anytime I've been asked to speak at anything for family. I feel very weird about it because I'm asked because of a background in public speaking and a background in comedy writing. So there's a weird feeling of pressure of making it funny, but also not making it too funny so that it becomes a standup routine. And I have been to weddings where,

where the vows were very much like, Oh, this is like, this is a tight seven about their relationship. And I do not like it. Yeah. It's not for her. This is just like a,

this is somebody now turning to the rest of the crowd going, what else? What else? I love her so much. Anyway, let's see. Who's from out of town? Who's from out of town? Who came to the party?

Oh, wow. Nova Scotia. Okay. Don't have anything for Nova Scotia. Who here is from Cincinnati? Yeah. But you struck a very good balance of like, this is an entertaining speech to,

I mean, like entertaining might not be the right word, but this is like a captivating and enjoyable speech to watch, which also had lots of heart and sincerity to it. Thank you. Yeah, they're very hard to write. But in the end, you're like, yes, I think this is what I want to say. And then it makes you love the other person a lot more because you actually have to sit down and articulate what you like about them.

Was that the hardest thing you had to write, do you think? No. I once had to write a column, Dan. No, it was very hard to write but also as i was doing it it started to feel very natural and good because a lot of the stuff that you talk about and that are already jokes the two of you have and what you don't realize about that necessarily is that they're like that shit's already polished because you've done it so much like you tell the same when you have an inside joke just all your only job then is making it accessible to other people uh so that the rest the crowd isn't lost um for us it was like orangutans like there was a very big thing about

how my wife is very environmentally minded and orangutans made a big impact on both of us apparently because so much of the uh deforestation that happens in Borneo is because of the peanut butter industry or like the palm oil industry. And it came up in both of our speeches. Right. It's so far the only wedding I've been to where both vows independently mentioned orangutan. And as long as you can, as long as it means something to the other person and it's accessible for the audience, then I feel like you can't go wrong. It's also, everybody's like, they want to be on

your side already. It's not like standup where you're people like, Oh, what's this chuckle fuck got to say? Like people, they all know you, they all want you to do well. And so it's a very forgiving audience. The hardest one that I had to write was for another wedding, which was one of my best men or groomsmen, Dan Campana, had just like this killer speech at my wedding. It was so funny. It was great. Dan Campana, a friend of the show, once again, he's come up a bunch of times.

He designed our logo, and we mentioned him last week for some other reason. I can't remember what. I can't remember what. I can't remember why. But he gave this great, great speech at my wedding. Clearly, he put a ton of time into it. He asked me to speak at his wedding too. And then he made me the anchor. He was like, oh, you're going to be speaking last.

And I was like, okay. And so I spent so much time working on that because I also knew on the day everyone who had been to both weddings would be like, what are you gonna do for Dan? How are you gonna top that? And I was like, well, obviously I have to because this is my job. And so I worked I worked really, really hard on that one. And then got to the point where I also had it just memorized so that I didn't have to read it.

And it just felt very off the cuff in the performance and everything. And I worked hard on that and was nervous in a way that I don't even get for standup or anything. Um, but yeah, everything we read our vows cause you don't, you're, you don't,

you have no idea what kind of state you're going to be in. Oh, another thing I would say, just if you go to a wedding, this is like a great back pocket thing to have. Even if you're not in some rope, even if you're not going to be in the wedding and it's not expected of you in any capacity, have something tight and polished and sentimental that you want to say about the bride

and groom. Because I've been to so many weddings where all of a sudden they just open the floor up and they're like, does anybody want to say anything about the bride and groom? And if you have something that's like polished in that moment, no one's expecting that. And they need it because some people are just like stumbling through it. I have never been to a wedding where they just opened the floor to the peasants yeah it's it's what a move it makes me nervous every time what are you hoping to get i don't know it's usually not it's at a different moment like the speeches are done and now everyone's like eating and like dancing is going to start soon and they're like well we got this other time to fill while everyone's eating is there anyone else who wants to say anything to the bride and groom this

also happened at a bachelor party by the way to me yeah where they were like we all sat down at this picnic table one night and they're like all right does everybody have something they want to say to Adam and they just went around this table and I'm just like not listening to a word anybody else says because I'm thinking okay okay here's your intro. Then you're going to dive into this first paragraph. Okay, you could do this, Sorin. It's like writing it in my head. But yeah, if you have something locked and loaded,

even if you don't say it then, if it's something tight, then when you are saying goodbye to the bride and groom or when they come to sit at your table, you say it to them then. And as long as it's not like, you know, I remember the time you two first met and like a long preamble, but just something you have to feel it out. But if you have something like that, you can become the hero of the wedding.

Man, that's terrifying. I mean, that's so good to know because I feel like if I had a wedding tomorrow and someone's like opened it up and pointed to me me I would just go back to everything I'd ever done in stand-up and see if like let's see if I can segue from their relationship the time I got hit by a taxi yeah to this one story was like oh man these this this couple is great it's really it's just like it's it's the perfect combination of two amazing things like like like Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.

You guys know how Space Jam... That's pretty funny when you think about it. Let's just unpack that. What do you think that pitch meeting was like? What do you think the Space Jam pitch meeting was like? That's what I think of when I think of this couple. Well, this has been a great night. I can't wait to see these two couple,

for them to dance their first dance. Also, their last dance. Hey, speaking of the last dance. Last dance. That Michael Jordan. 98. Does it get better than that? And then also, I think there's also, if you're allowed to get super drunk at a wedding,

I think people always say like, you know, be respectful and don't get too drunk. No, you kind of want somebody at your wedding who's like blasted out of their mind like as long as they're not as long as they're not destroying things then now it's kind of fun because it means that people are letting loose and that's what you want at your wedding yeah it's i feel very lucky that i've never been to a wedding where like something horrible happened no one's ever gotten so drunk that they've ruined anything. Yeah. I know that's a movie and sitcom trope about something really dramatic happening

because someone gets drunk and emotional, but I've only had good times at weddings. Yeah. It's on the car ride home alone where the movie really happens. Yeah. I don't think i have either i think things have always been pretty tame with my way the weddings i've gone to i've been to one elopement and that was weird but other than that it's all been pretty cool like my my parents told me a story they went to where uh a story of a wedding they went to rather where um the groom smushed cake in the

bride's face but it was clear that they hadn't discussed it previously and then the two just did not talk for the rest of the evening that's pretty good a fight between the bride and groom. It seems like one of the easier to avoid conflicts. Because you're planning a wedding together. And it's like, I know at this point they're going to have us do the cake thing. Should we, what should we do? Should I smush it in your face? Or should it, you know what?

I'll come up with something on the day. Yeah. I'll surprise you. See how it feels. I'm going to play it by ear. I've been to a wedding before where the, the next morning, some people had all stayed in one hotel room together and somebody in that hotel room had peed in their bed.

Cause they were so drunk and they were ever, they were all kind of like laughing about it. And then the bride said to the groom, should I tell them or should you? And the groom had done the exact same thing that night had gone back to the wedding bed and peed in it by accident oh no yeah is that a fun story for the future or no okay i think it has been it's proven to be but at the time it was like well that's ominous i don't think that's good.

Soren, we've talked a lot about weddings. Are you comfortable with how much of your personal life has been shared in this episode? Yeah, we didn't actually do a ton. We didn't say where it was or anything like that. And the stuff that I'm giving out is, I think, only helpful to people. Yeah. I mean people know where it is because I've been selling like they do those maps to the stars. I've known for anyone who wants to do like the crack.com national tour of important landmarks.

Oh, it's so depressing. Yeah, it sucks. And it's so expensive. It's so expensive for no payoff. You get like one person every three months. He's wearing a tuxedo t-shirt and his mom dropped him off. Yeah. To come do it. There are people who are like at the after hours diner and then several states later, several days later, haggard and overgrown facial hair at your wedding venue.

And they're like, were you here when Soren got married? I'm like, who's Soren? Who the fuck are you? Get out of my town. I'm like, okay, now we're going to go off to Calgary where they did Comic-Con once.

This is where Dan interviewed Stan Lee. Wow. This is where it happened. I mean, it's all rodeo grounds now on yeah but yeah I think we're I think weddings is a good topic for this one I don't think I need to ask you another question yeah there's not much left to do but have me track down the social accounts which I can do in a minute it's just gonna take me I'm a little bit more frazzled than usual because this was the day that we're recording this, which is July 30th, 2020. It was kind of a big news day.

Former presidential candidate Herman Cain died of coronavirus today. Soren, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, obviously it's sad when anybody dies, particularly of this pandemic, because you don't know who's going to be next. It could be somebody on your team. So it's a sad day, but you got to look on the bright side of these types of things, the silver lining.

He had lived a long life. You say that, how old was he? 72, I think. Nope. 74. He's in his 70s. silver lining he had lived a long life um he was you say that how old was he 72 i think nope 74 he's in his 70s so he's on the toilet of his career a toilet of his life i shouldn't say i think his career was like being a businessman and owning a restaurant we should probably take this back. I don't know what Herman Cain did. He was a businessman, wasn't he?

Yeah, he owned a pizza place. Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. I wasn't wrong. So, you know, it's sad. And obviously you feel for his family. But what an awesome big life he got to live he got to be a presidential candidate

and only a handful of people in the entire United States can say that and he got to do some things that other people never had a chance to do and one of those cost him his life he went to Tulsa we shouldn't do this I should come up with something else

yeah let's keep it all okay then then we're gonna keep every second of it and you can find out more from us on Twitter. You can find the show on Twitter at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. Or you can find Soren at Soren underscore LTD. Or me at DLB underscore INC. You can find us on Instagram, QQ underscore with underscore Soren underscore and underscore Daniel. You should hire our favorite person in the world, Gabe Harder, at GabeHarder.com. We also have a Patreon.

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Uh... I think that's it. Great. See ya.