“Weddings are important because they celebrate life and possibility.”

— Anne Hathaway

You will be thrilled to know, I’m sure, that this is the last mention of the wedding.

It’s over and done with. She who is always right buried the image of the Infant of Prague, and it worked. No rain on the bride. We left it there in the ground, hoping it will cover other weddings. Some historical excavators will find it centuries from now and think it’s Elton John in drag.

This, then, is the last mention of that affair. No more wedding talk. Next week I will get back to business. First in order will be why central Maine is having such an effect on how lobster tacos are made in the Middle East. Stay tuned.

A few tips about any weddings you are planning.

Myth:

You are not losing a daughter. You are gaining a son. Nonsense. You are losing a daughter. No matter how fabulous the son is, you are losing a daughter.

Tip one: Never relax. There are cameras everywhere, smartphone cameras, wedding photographers’ cameras, amateur cameras, possibly even lipstick cameras in the bathrooms. Keep the smile. Keep a brush in your pocket, stand up straight and hold your stomach in, keep your mouth wiped, check your nose and ear hairs, and don’t spend too much time dancing with younger women. Trust me, someone is watching you. It may be the bride’s day, but someone is waiting to catch you off guard. That constant flash of light is not a stroke. Someone is taking your picture, and you’re not going to like it when it pops up on Facebook. For years you may have believed that you looked like an aging movie star, when in reality, you resemble a Boston Irish hotel doorman three beers from falling asleep on the curb.

Never ask any one younger than yourself if they are on Facebook. That’s like asking if they have flush toilets. Everyone is on Facebook, even if they deny it. If the pope and Putin are on Facebook, the bridesmaids, the waiters, the chefs are on Facebook. Watch what you say. Never relax.

You will find that whomever your child married has an even larger extended family than you were told. Your own family suddenly appears to be larger than you remembered; they look different now and have more exciting lives. A nephew I thought would be in prison now owns restaurants in Brooklyn, another is a wealthy dentist and another nephew is a highway patrolman in Nevada. That will help when I go to Vegas.

Here is the news that’s good for Maine:

“Destination weddings” are vastly underrated by the state Chamber of Commerce. Such weddings are gold mines for state business and should be exploited.

They’re good for local florists, wineries, local help etc., but they have even longer tentacles.

I introduced the head of Shadow Distribution, a Maine film company, to an international film distributor. They exchanged cards and talked for an hour about films shooting in Maine and the assorted vagaries of film distribution. Hollywood comes to Maine.

At all the meals, important-looking, well-dressed people sat around talking and exchanging business cards and Snapchat addresses. At the reception, the rehearsal dinner, on the dance floor and the golf course, people from all around the country and abroad, relatives and friends, were being introduced to Maine.

Folks from away arrived at the wedding by driving through miles of gorgeous summer-sun-drenched woodlands and small, quiet, picturesque Maine towns and arrived at the breathtaking Sebasco Harbor seaside, where they played golf and kayaked. They came from France, London, Los Angeles, New Orleans, St. Louis and Arizona. A young man was there from Romania, another from England. Four couples, young and middle-aged, engaged in serious conversations about buying or building summer rental properties on our shores and inland lakes. These were not idle conversations. Some of them were my Southern relatives meeting my Maine friends. Deals were made; numbers and addresses were taken.

Of course, conventions bring visitors, and what do they see? Airport lobbies; cabs zooming through strange city streets; boring, florescent-lighted rooms with fattening hotel food.

Destination weddings, if properly placed, sell the real, authentic Maine, the seaside, forests, lakes and real people who live here. My daughter, born in Hollywood, has roots in Maine; and this Labor Day weekend, she sold its seeds to the world.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.

Copy the Story Link