I cry. I cry a lot.

I cry at commercials, I cry at the movies. God forbid I go down the rabbit hole of the happy/sad videos on YouTube of military people coming home or surprise baby announcements.

In my defense I am a happy crier. I enjoy it and I tend to awkwardly laugh while I do it. When my wife graduated from university, I didn’t have a chance. I just sat in the audience, proud as could be with tears a streaming down my face, happy as a clam.

Last weekend my brother-in-law got married. Like most comedians, the moment somebody tells you that they are getting married it just becomes a countdown to when they ask you to MC. I waited, but miracle of miracles, it never came. They asked a pair of good friends to do it. You could see that some of the extended family was surprised, but I couldn’t have been happier. Being the MC is a terrible job. You have to write a bunch of clean jokes for family you don’t know, you are the very last to eat, and you really shouldn’t have very much to drink. What kind of wedding is that?

I made it about one minute into the ceremony before the water works began. The first bridesmaid, who also happens to be my lovely wife, hadn’t even made it halfway down the aisle before I was a wreck. Add to that some tiny little children carrying rings and tossing flower petals, and I didn’t have a chance! The rest of the ceremony got a little Jesus-y for my taste but to be fair it was a catholic wedding, so I should have known that Jesus would be there. It was at his house after all. After the stand up, sit down, stand up, kneel down, stand up, sit down Pilates class that is the catholic wedding ceremony, it was time for the groom to kiss the bride and time for me to go back to taking pictures and crying like a drunk aunt at … well … at a wedding.

I think my favourite part of the whole day was when the bride was walking down the aisle. Everybody is looking at the bride, but I watched the groom. There is something about seeing the man’s face when he sees his bride for the first time. It’s some kind of wonderful. It’s the sentence of the chapter before the page is turned. I found that out when I first saw my wife walking down the aisle, apparently it looked like I smelled a fart. My wife told me I looked so insanely disinterested and bored. Apparently my resting face makes me look like I’m totally disgusted. When I think back on that moment though, I remember how happy, relieved, nervous, and excited I was all at once. Maybe somebody should have told my face.

My wife and I laugh about it now, but I did feel bad. The photographer at my brother-in-law’s wedding was a guest at ours and yesterday gave us a CD of some photos she took on our big day. I hate to say it, people were right. I looked so unhappy! My face was so grumpy! It looked like I heard somebody make a pun. In my defense though, when we moved forward in the pictures on the CD and I got to see her walk down the aisle a second time, this time I think I made the right face.