The Science of Wedding Wars: 185

A wedding is supposed to be a public celebration of two people who have decided to spend the rest of their lives together. That is the official explanation. In practice, a wedding is also a temporary government, a traveling theater company, a family reunion, a fashion exhibition, a catered financial emergency, and an emotional military exercise involving relatives who have been waiting twenty years to settle something nobody else remembers.Wedding wars rarely begin with declarations of war. They begin with innocent questions. Who is paying? Who is invited? Why is Cousin Randall invited when he stole the lawn mower? Why does the bride's mother get to choose the flowers? Why does the groom's mother believe beige is an act of hostility? Why does the couple want tacos when everyone knows weddings require chicken covered in a sauce nobody can identify? Within days, two people who merely wanted to get married find themselves managing competing governments with nuclear seating charts.