Listless
I’ve dealt with lists before in my life and I daresay I’m pretty much an expert at them. Oh yes. I’ve written to-do lists, shopping lists, lists for bills, lists to do with what things I want to buy, all sorts. I’ve seen Schindler’s List, I got a bad Edinburgh review in The List, and I once described someone as listless to sound clever. I’m so caught up with lists you may as well call me Listy Springfield, Lindford Listy, Listy Blue Eyes. Or something.
Look, what I’m trying to say is, I know how to do a list. It’s easy. Well, that is, until the challenge of the wedding list. Layla has already put a small one together but I have to add my lot of friends and family to it, so that we know rough numbers when we see some prospective venues. No, that’s not how many rough people will be there.
I say ‘we’ see venues, but this week, Layla has to see them all by herself. I am not particularly happy with this, as if she likes them, then I will only have to go at another point. I generally also think its much better if we are both getting married there, which we are, as that is the whole point of the thing, that we see it at the same time. Annoyingly, most venues do not seem to have opening hours that fit in with the schedule of a stand-up comic. Early evenings? Er, no. Sorry. Weekends? Er, no again. Even this coming Saturday afternoon, which would usually be a safe bet at any other time of year, happens to collide with the first festival of the season, the Camden Crawl. And so, once again, the Tiernan shall be absent from proceedings.
I worry that this will keep happening till it gets to the wedding day and I get first glance on arrival. Sure I cope with doing comedy gigs at venues I’ve haven’t seen till I get there, without demanding capacity figures and seating arrangements. But this is all rather different, and I do sometimes arrive to find a distinct lack of lighting and an audience consisting of twats, so it’s always worth checking out things first. I’d hate to turn up only to find a rowdy stag do from Newcastle sitting on the front row. Besides, I hear you get free coffee or a drink at these venue appointments and I don’t want to miss too many of those. If we see a few in a day I can get a proper caffeine high, or just pissed, for nada. Score!
So I have to do my bit of the list, and suddenly the actual worth of family and friends comes shining through. Sure immediate family and close friends are straight on there, but now I have to actually decide about everyone else. Then you have the whole issue of who can come to the reception and who to the whole day and suddenly the most banal ways of sorting people into groups arises: ‘Yeah you were a friend when I last saw you three years ago, but now, chances are, you might well be a dick’; ‘You are only a facebook friend, but you are the best of the facebook friends, so you can come to the reception’; ‘Definitely can come to the ceremony, but if you try and dance at the reception, children may cry and people may be sick.’ I’m not even sure if you can invite someone only to the reception, but you get my point. I may start a series of tasks or challenges and only those who pass can come along to both.
Thing is, Layla, being of middle eastern descent, has a silly amount of family that have to be there, and I have less than 20. This means I need to balance out her family with enough of my friends, so some favours may need to be called in. Either that or we have a ‘300’ themed wedding with her family being the many Persians, vs. my few hardcore Spartans. Not a bad idea actually. I’ll just make a list of swords needed. Then I just need to make another list to work out who I’d most like to kick into a well and invite them along. Problem solved.
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