Justin et Audrey: my BM gets hitched in the land of wine and cheese (Partie Un)

On the eight-and-a-half hour flight from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport to Philadelphia -- and on the subsequent five-hour flight from Philadelphia to LA -- my fellow passengers and I were consumed by the smell of garlic. I was immediately self-conscious but then thought, Wait, that's not possible. As promiscuous as this may sound, my hands had touched a million things (note I didn't say "a million people") between noon Friday and noon Monday: benches, mud, arugula, hors d'oeuvres, doilies, dish detergent, discarded doors, discarded veggies, two cats, two wedding rings, five Paris Metro railings, ten champagne bottles, dozens of TSA bins, and countless glasses of the most amazing viognier. The idea that I was the source of the smell was inconceivable...

And yet, the odor of a hundred peeled garlic cloves haunted me, stuck to me, boarded this Transatlantic flight with me -- Out, out damn garlic! -- along with just the faintest hint of raw onion. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind a bit. 

- - -

Justin and Audrey met in a classic film poster and bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard in the spring of 2010; Audrey was visiting Los Angeles at the time with two friends from France. (Pas une coïncidence.) They played pen pals for several months, sending each other gifts and postcards and YouTube links, speaking occasionally by Skype at 2am PST. Shortly after 2Es and I tied the knot on October 2nd, Justin visited and soon after proposed to Audrey in France. And just over nine months later, the two were married (see J's hand-drawn invitation above) in the Moselle province in Saint Hubert -- a village just thirty minutes from Audrey's home in Metz. There is nothing traditional about their road to marriage, and (likewise) there was nothing traditional about their rain-soaked, homemade August wedding. 

As I mentioned in my rehearsal dinner toast, I've never known a bride to welcome two complete strangers into her apartment the week of her wedding, let alone allow them to dominate the living room. But because the French don't believe in stress (le stress), Audrey permitted Odin and I, International Co-Best Men, to crash on her spacious sofa and spare the expense of a hotel room. Occupying the modest apartment in the days leading up to her wedding were Justin, Audrey, Audrey's one-of-a-kind roommate Baptiste (who is both appropriately and inappropriately nicknamed "Uncle Boobs"), two Americans with little to no French under their belt, and Django. 

Django traded room and board for this photo shoot, which he later described as "suffisant"

I arrived a day later than expected due to an incident with a suspicious odor (no, not garlic -- sulfur) on the first leg of my trip. I met Odin at CDG; together we bused to the Gare de l'Est station and took the hi-speed rail to the northeast corner of France; and when we rendezvoused with the bride and groom on the Gare de Metz train platform, they led us down cobblestone streets between pre-war buildings to Audrey's 4th floor apartment. I unsuccessfully convinced myself that I was both alert and prepared for a tour of the city before passing out on the couch for god knows how long. 

Over the course of the next five days, Odin and I would discover the secret to the romanticized French lifestyle: bière et cigarettes at any given pub or restaurant, followed by a leisurely stroll (toujours avec la bière et les cigarettes) down worn and weathered alleys bathed in pools of auburn light, retiring no earlier than 4:30 in the morning and waking up no later than 8. Recovering from a trip to France involves a great deal of sleeping -- and no, it isn't the jet lag. 

We spent Thursday afternoon with les Américains -- namely, Justin's family from Maryland -- exploring the city, eating pasta, drinking beer, walking down the fleuve de la Moselle (the Moselle River) and through the Centre Saint-Jacques, and futzing with a life-sized chess board at Metz Plage, the city's "built-in beach" throughout the month of August. Then we scurried to La Brasserie FLO for the dîner de répétition, where the crowd was half American and half French, and where the intermingling of those distinct halves was prompted with flowing beer and wine. 

Bridesmaid Nathalie kickstarts the intermingling

I woke up the next morning at an unfriendly hour to an empty apartment (even Odin had scampered off somewhere), so I shaved and showered and dressed while Django terrorized a plastic hair band. Audrey and Justin returned to the apartment -- appearing somewhat frazzled for the first time that week -- and asked if I wanted to go with them. We were headed to their wedding site, though I didn't know it at the time. We raided a neighbor's refrigerator, packed the trunk and corners of the car and filled our laps with a month's worth of groceries, wine, a keg and a Co2 tank and drove half an hour outside of Metz to a farming village with a population of maybe eight. 

Justin and the Roquettes

The groom put us to work immediately and gave us various chores in the kitchen -- including but not limited to peeling, dicing, chopping, washing, cleaning, dressing, food processing and saran wrapping. 

Groom Justin getting his hands dirty -- and the remnants of his labor.

We would use a dish; we would wash a dish. Even the industrial-sized kitchen we had been blessed with was struggling to keep up with us. 

Odin prepping a monster bowl of hummus

unboxed shit. We put up signs. Audrey pointed, and we worked. 

In a matter of hours, we had turned a fridge full of groceries into five shelves of prepared dishes. 

At a certain point, Odin turned to me and said, "Dude, it's 9 o'clock." I almost said, "A.M.?" Bride, groom, co-best men and a few friends had worked for nine hours straight. Most of us didn't get out of there until 10:30 in the evening; Uncle Boobs stayed behind to arrange some architectural lighting in the space.

And it was right around then, or maybe on the drive back to the city, that I discovered what the whole Best Man thing (Co- or not) is all about -- realizing that it had so little to do with standing up at the altar, or about handing off the rings at the right moment. It's about rolling up your sleeves in the 48 to 72 hours before the ceremony and doing whatever needs to be done. It's about keeping the groom's head in a good place and keeping the mood light and the music loud. And it's about dragging the groom kicking and screaming out of the reception hall on the eve of his wedding when he says that he wants to stay for like two more hours and get more stuff done.

We went out that night, no surprise, and met Baptiste and Justin's friend Matt at a bustling pub near the town center. We closed the bar and got kabobs and (French) fries and meandered through Metz, which is both eerie and perfect at that hour. We came across a pop-up badminton game in a plaza and shot the shit until (again) 4:30 in the morning and toasted our friend with each round of beer. We sat on the steps of old buildings and discussed politics and economics and peed in the street, and then we put Justin to bed. He was getting married in twelve hours.

- - -

Stay tuned for Part II -- coming Thursday! Revenez jeudi pour la Partie Deux!

A Preview of Next Week (un aperçu de la semaine prochaine)

This past weekend, Best Man Justin became Groom Justin ... which means that I got to spend an amazing week in the northeast of France with some amazing people ... and it means that we've got a lot of catching up to do.

What's happening next week on TGS?

1. my best friend gets married (parts I and II)

2. we give away some sweet ass cufflinks

3. we meet this guy

4. we re-define the role of the (Co) Best Man

5. more business with my yankees hat [video included]

6. did I mention that sweet giveaway? [custom engraving included]

and

7. I get back in the kitchen ...

... where the husband belongs

See you next week y'all!

-brian

We Are Men Who Reek: Justin's Bachelor Party Revealed

As I write this, sitting here in my go-to mega chain coffee shop, it's not hard to notice that people are staring. The table's central location, just a few feet from the register, makes their gestures (the pointing, the covering of their mouths with their hands) and their actions (the complaining to management, the projectile vomiting) that much more obvious.

And I suppose it's in this precise moment when I realize that it's me. I'm the nuisance. Every item of clothing that I'm wearing reeks of campfire. The pores on my skin seep smoke and sauteed onions, overcooked sausages and pure sweat. It's been two days since Justin's camping-inspired bachelor party, and I haven't showered. The stench is so unbearable it's almost impractical; the Starbucks customers are beginning to think that they are the ones who smell and that I, in fact, am the only pleasant-smelling one among us. It's the only rational explanation.

[click photos to enlarge]

The festivities began on Friday, when we stocked the van with two cases of beer, two coolers full of beer, beer wrapped in blankets, and a set of jumper cables. We, amateur group of genuine bad-asses, headed north to an undisclosed occasion, carried on a discussion about hover boards for longer than I can recall, and pretended -- 4-1/2 hours into the trip -- that the countless signs for Yosemite did not exist.

Surprise, Justin!

From left to right: yours truly, Groom Justin, Co-Best Man Odin and fellow groom James

After another five hours of making our mothers proud and photographing ourselves around a national park entrance sign, we shot over to the Mariposa Grove, home to a bunch of giant trees and giant logs and all other things giant.

Notice how the Mariposa map display at the trailhead, typically at eye level, is buried in four feet of snow.

This mock sword fighting moment is hilarious; even more hilarious was the moment after when I fell into the icy water below.

We sought out the "Upper Grove of Sequoias" and the Museum at the end of the Outer Loop trail but could not find either one. (Later we learned that the museum was completely buried in snow. Perhaps that piece of information was on one of the displays engulfed in snow at the trailhead.) So we abandoned the search and started climbing boulders, as real men are prone to do.

That evening we stopped at Yosemite's Ahwahnee Bar (part, of course, of the ornate Ahwahnee Hotel, a not-too-distant cousin of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining) where a sizable surprise was awaiting our groom. Justin's longtime friend Matt had flown in from Baltimore, rented a car in San Fran, drove five or so hours and met up with us the Ahwahnee. He propped a menu in front of his face and sat at the table beside ours, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal himself. It couldn't have worked out better.

The fifth and newest member of our gang stares down a fish

With Matt on board, we ditched the suffocatingly woody Ahwahnee Hotel and found our campsite at Hodgdon Meadow. In pitch black and a light rain, we set up our tents, unpacked our cars, loaded up the bear-proof food locker and cooked a solid meal. We crawled into our sleeping bags in several layers of clothing and rocked ourselves to sleep.

The following morning we set out for the Upper Yosemite Falls (the tallest waterfall in the U.S. at 2,425 ft), a strenuous multi-hour hike with some of the most amazing views of mother nature. We stopped for lunch atop a stretch of rocks about a mile up and then continued on, taunted by spectacular views of the falls all along the trail.

From top to bottom: lunch with a view, sights from the hike, and Odin recreating the "Lower Falls"

And after 3.2 miles of steep uphill climbing, debating whether or not to "go on," and trudging through both mud and snow, we arrived at the peak -- the Yosemite Falls Overlook -- and took in our accomplishment.

Matt left us that evening just before midnight (he drove through the night to catch his plane back to Baltimore), but we had one more manly activity planned for the following morning: Target Practice.

We ventured into the wilderness and set up a shooting range of shoots using three quintessential enemy targets, including a Nazi zombie and the shark from Jaws. Justin and comrades were asked to choose a weapon (either a slingshot with pine cones or a throwing knife) and move from target to target. I'm proud to announce that I was the victor that morning, driving a particular prickly pine cone into our third target, a photograph of Michael Bay.

Kill shot

And that was the close of our weekend, save the hour and a half drive through dense, zero visibility Yosemite fog and the five hour drive back to Los Angeles. We were sore, we smelled like burnt logs, and Odin may very well have punctured a lung; but we were reborn in some way. Redefined. Three days in the earth, in the dirt, in the rain and snow, building campfires from starter logs and NewCastle summer ale cartons -- we were men, in the truest sense of the word. And Justin was returned home, unscathed. All in all, it was a success.

I think Beckett put it best in Waiting for Godot: 

POZZO 

Who are you?

VLADIMIR 

We are men.

[Silence.]

- - -

Photos by Brian Leahy for Joanna Wilson Photography

Just Some Dudes Dressing Another Dude: A Straight-Up Photo Chronicle

Enough with the dress shopping. This is how men shop for wedding attire. Click to expand photos. Straight up.

We don't walk. We take the escalator, yo. And no, we don't walk up it.

We shop for ties first. Why? Cause they're easy, and cause we don't have to commit to one right away. We found 800 ties that worked that day. Boo-ya.

We ain't ashamed to look at prices.

 

We don't buy new shoes - cause we don't wanna wear 'em in.

Men eat lunch mad early. We get busy on pizza slices and shawarma. We flick each other off for no reason at all. 

We find a store and occupy a single fitting room for several hours straight. We ask for every combination of everything in every size. You're right, I'm not XXL. But we'd like to see how it fits.

And after a full day of retail shopping, we make zero decisions and purchase one item under $100 which may or may not contribute to the final ensemble. 

Why? Cause we don't know how to do this. We're our fathers' sons. So when you go to Bloomingdale's, we go to the shoe store next door. We don't need shoes. But we'll pretend that we do. Word.

- - -

Photography by Brian Leahy for Joanna Wilson Photography

Co-Best Men: Retracting & Acting like the Coen Brothers

Long ago I wrote a post on this here blog in which I (in effect) shat upon the title of Co-Maid of Honor and the trend of having two people perform the duties of one person. I won't quote myself, because then I'll truly feel like tool, but I may have said something along the lines of:

"Men would never let this sort of thing happen."

::Swallows pride::

A few months ago, my best friend (and former Best Man) Justin approached me about his own wedding ... about serving as Best Man at his wedding ... and about doing so alongside our mutual friend Odin. It was like the birth of a sitcom premise. One wedding, one groom, one role -- two men. CO-BEST MEN.

(I hear that Two and a Half Men time slot is wide open right now.)

Justin (center), Odin and I at my pre-wedding brunch

I love Odin like a brother, I truly do. He was there throughout my own planning process and during our wedding weekend, assisting however he could and bringing humor and a fresh perspective to those tough and tense moments. And while the thought of co-piloting rather than spearheading this project solo still makes me question my manhood, two things stick out in my mind: (1) if I had to co-pilot this with anyone, it would be Odin, hands down; and (2) it's a huge sigh of relief.

It's nice to have another dude to brainstorm with, to bounce ideas around with, to coordinate with. We're each other's checks and balances. We're like the two houses of Congress, only efficient. And being that we're both in the entertainment industry, we have some trailblazers to look up to.

Like me and Odin, Ethan and Joel Coen are a writer and director, respectively, and their partnership has created more works of genius than I care to name.

Ron Howard & Brian Grazer: if this platonic, Hollywood power couple can come together to put out Apollo 13 and Cinderella Man and Randsom and Frost/Nixon and Backdraft -- then I think Odin and I can throw a killer bachelor party. And we'll just hope it doesn't turn out like The Dilemma.

Speaking of which ... there's no better idols for two Co-Best Men than Favreau and Vaughn. From Swingers to The Break-up to the Iron Man franchise, these guys know the value of putting yourself aside and showing some man love.

For now, Odin and I have bonded over the joy in providing Justin with skewed details of our stag weekend (happening at the end of this month). At first we thought that visiting all the bridges from The Bridges of Madison County would be lame, but the idea is really growing on us.