This is a good time to select a silver pattern and a groom. (see Chapter 1, “How to Find Somebody to Go on Dates With”). In fact, your smart modern bride will often select several grooms, so as to guarantee that in case one or two of them get “cold feet,” she’ll still be able to have her Very Special Day.

You must be much more careful in selecting your silver pattern. It should have a name similar to the ones developers give to shoddy new apartment complexes, such as “Coventry Downe Manor”; and each place setting should consist of a regular fork, a dinner fork, a breakfast fork, a snack fork, a soup fork, a holiday fork, an emergency fork, a Care Bear fork, a Pez dispenser, and the equivalent knives, spoons, ladles, scone handlers, beet prongs, tuffet churners, prawn smelters, and clam goaders. Remember: Your silver is your first major family heirloom, to be cherished and stored in the same closet where you cherish your wedding dress until such time as one of you files for divorce.

This is the time for the formal announcement of your engagement to appear in your local newspaper. Your local newspaper should have a name like The Morning, Afternoon & Evening Chronic Spokesperson-Fabricator, and the wording of the announcement should be as follows:

“(Your parents’ names) are extremely relieved to announce the engagement of (your name) to (your fiance’s name), who is not really good enough, son of (your fiance’s parents’ names), who are quite frankly dreadful, but (your parents’ names) will settle for just about anything at this point because suitors are not exactly knocking down (your name)’s door despite all the money (your parents’ names) spent on her teeth. An elaborate wedding is planned.”

This is also when you send out your invitations. You are naturally going to want to invite me and a number of my friends, because we are a lot of fun at any kind of affair where there is free liquor, plus if the band is really lame, which it will be (see page 50), we are not afraid to express our displeasure by hurling segments of the prime rib entree, which by the way may be served buffet-style for informal afternoon weddings. Others you might consider inviting include your family and any member of the groom’s family who can produce a receipt proving he or she has purchased at least one full place setting.

The invitation should be on a little card, which you mail to your invitees along with a little matching R.S.V.P. card and a return envelope that says POSTAL SERVICE WILL NOT DELIVER WITHOUT STAMP.

This is when the mother of the groom should go out and buy a dress to wear to the wedding that is fancy enough so that the mother of the bride will be convinced that the groom’s mother is trying to upstage the bride, and consequently the bride’s mother will think about virtually nothing else for the rest of her life.

This is also when you should hire a band. It makes no difference which one. All wedding bands are the same. They’re all cloned from living cells that were taken from the original wedding band, “Victor Esplanade and his Sounds of Compunction,” and preserved in a saline solution in Secaucus, New jersey (which, incidentally, is also the home of the first native American Formica trees). They’ll show up in stained tuxedos, and no matter what kind of music you ask them to play, they’ll play it in such a way that it sounds like “New York, New York.” Really. If you feel like dancing to some rock ‘n’ roll, and you ask them if they maybe know “Honky Tonk Woman,” they’ll say, “Oh sure, we know that one,” and they’ll play “New York, New York.” They can’t help it. We’re talking genetics.

Now is the time for you and the groom to get your blood tests. If your groom’s blood fails, get another groom. If your blood fails, get some new blood. We are much too far into the planning process to turn back now.

By now you should also have lined up a photographer. You’ll want to have lots of photographs of your wedding to show to your family and friends, who will have been unable to see the actual ceremony because the photographer was always in the way.

Often you can save money by having your pictures taken by a friend or relative who is familiar with photography in the sense of owning a camera and knowing where a Fotomat is. I have some good friends named Rob and Helene who took this approach, and the pictures came out really swell except that for some technical reason there is no light in any of them. just these vaguely humanoid shapes. We all love to get these pictures out and look at them. “Look!” we say. “There’s Helene! Or Rob! Or the cake!

By now your advance wedding gifts should have started to arrive, including at least 14 attractive and functional fondue sets. Also by this time the bride should start to notice a scratchy feeling at the back of her throat, indicating that she is just starting to come down with a case of Mongolian Death Flu.

This is where the groom starts to get actively involved in the wedding preparations, by having a “bachelor’s party” where he gets together with his “chums” for one last “fling” and wakes up several days later in an unexplored region of New Zealand. Meanwhile you, the bride, are bustling about, looking after the hundreds of last-minute details, having the time of your life despite the intermittent paralysis in your right leg.

The highlight of this week, of course, is the Rehearsal Dinner, when the wedding principals, especially the immediate families, take time out from the hectic pace of preparations to share in an evening of warmth and conviviality, culminating when the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom go after each other with dessert forks.

This is it! The biggest day of your life, and there’s no way that any dumb old 108-degree fever is going to put a damper on it!

A good idea is to put your wedding gown on early, so the sweat stains can expand from your armpit areas and cover the entire gown, and thus be less noticeable. And now it’s on to the wedding site!

As the guests arrive, the ushers (What do you mean, you forgot the ushers?! Get some!!) should ask the guests whether they want smoking or non-smoking, and seat them accordingly (except the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom, who should be seated in separate states). Then, at the appointed time, the organist should start playing a traditional song, such as “Here Comes the Bride” or “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wedding procession should come down the aisle, in the following order:

1. A cute little nephew, who will carry the ring and announce, at the most dramatic part of the ceremony, that he has to make poopy. If you have no cute little nephew, rent one.

2. The groom (if available).

3. The bridesmaids, walking sideways to minimize the risk that they will injure a member of the audience in the eye with their puffed shoulders.

4. You, the bride, the Center of Everything, smiling radiantly, your eyes sparkling like the most beautiful stars in the sky until, as you reach the altar, they swell shut in reaction to the antibiotics.

From that point on, it Will all be a happy blur to you—the ceremony, the reception, dancing with your new husband to your Special Song (“New York, New York”). Enjoy it all, for you’ll never have a wedding like this again, even if you do recover fully.