The Title Says it All, doesn’t it?

Well, February is here, and that means it’s wedding season. A time of great passion. A time of great joy. All sounds pretty nice, eh?

Hey folks, Quinn David Furness checking in here with our first ever installment in the ‘Beantown Blog,’ a new opportunity to bitch and moan about whatever’s on my mind at any point anywhere anytime. No longer will you the Friend of the Podcast have to wait for our weekly shows to see exactly what’s grinding my gears on a daily basis. Let’s jump in here.

So here’s the deal–I’m not normally the guy who gets invited to a lot of weddings. Surprised? I don’t know if it’s because people don’t want paparazzi at their special event, or what the situation is, but I accept it because I recognize that while many things are, not everything is about me. Long story short, weddings are not usually something I have a lot of material for due to inexperience. Well, in the past week or so, I’ve all of a sudden had multiple issues with wedding invites and +1s, and that brings me to what we’re here to talk about: +1s and their legal status.

Now I know what you might be thinking–“Oh man, Quinn, +1s? That’s pretty simple. You give your invitee a +1, and they get to bring whomever they want to bring. As long as there’s no weird bad blood or anything between the invitee’s +1 and the host of the event, it’s all good.” Well, you’d be wrong. There have actually been a couple of different instances involving +1s I could talk about here, but I’m going to focus on one specifically.

When you send out an invite and include a +1 for the invitee on the invite, you are giving up your right to control who the +1 is at that point. When you drop it in the mailbox or you send your e-card, BOOM. It’s done. I think there was some sort of Supreme Court law from the 50s that established this, but I don’t really remember. We’ll get someone from the writing team to check that out. Back to the bit here tho, I’ve got a female friend who’s got some weddings coming up this summer, and she wants me to act as her +1. Easy enough. I’ve done the +1 before. I know the +1. I was born to play the +1.

There’s only one problem. The hosts of these weddings [that’s right, multiple instances] is not sure if I’m a suitable +1 because they don’t know me well. Pretend for a second I’m that lawyer from Serial who botched the case (and she also died RIP in Peace): “WHAAAAAAATT??” My running buddy from grad school Elyse used to be a killer impression of her. She’s also getting married this summer! I’ll be there! No word on the +1 situation for that wedding yet…Feels like I’m jinxing it at this point.

So what’s the deal here? I thought this was AMERICA, where you could bring anyone you wanted as your +1 because it’s your God-given goddamn constitutional right. As a PSA to all of you out there getting ready to send out your wedding invitations: This isn’t the 1950s Soviet Union anymore. You’re not Stalin. Your totalitarian authoritarianism has no power here.

You might think I’m overreacting, but if this is indicative of a larger societal cultural trend, I won’t hear it and I won’t stand for it. Invitees should be free to bring whomever they choose! We all want the special day to be filled with joy, mirth, and happiness.

Has anyone ever read that novel House of Mirth by Edith Wharton? I read Ethan Frome once and I just remember feeling really depressed when it was over.

BTW Cristina Gutierez was the name of the Serial lawyer. She died in 2004, technically of a heart attack, but she had diabetes and MS too. Woof.

In conclusion, you don’t get to pick and choose your invitee’s +1s. That’s not what this country was founded on. You wanna know what America is all about? Liberty. Freedom. Passion. Fear. Greed. Obesity. Diabetes. Football. The TODAY Show. Howie Mandel. But it will never, and I mean NEVER, be about wedding authoritarianism.

Thanks again to everyone for reading. This was pretty fun, eh? Hope you’re having a good day, wherever you’re reading from. I’ll leave you with an inspirational quote

Fear is America’s #1 natural resource -Quinn David Furness