I had a Bloody Mary on the trip up to the top of the mountain in the gondola. I made it, I brought it, I drank it.
I got married in Kansas when it still only sold alcohol by the drink in “private clubs”. My half of the wedding party (mostly my brothers) decided they needed a drink after pictures but before the ceremony. They wandered into a pretty rough-looking club and ordered a round. The bartender told them he couldn’t serve them as they weren’t members. A regular looked at the 6 guys and told him that he doubted that the liquor control board was sending out folks tuxes on stings. They got their drinks.
!!!.. Oh, right, you’re referring to the marriage ceremony, aka “wedding”.
I had forgotten the context of this specific discussion and had to scroll back through the thread to realize that no, you’re not talking about high-headcount polyamory here. 
Oh yeah, the ceremony. My wife and I have been married for 26 years, no problems there.
I don’t know how untrue it is, but I certainly wouldn’t look at someone’s mother or father and decide whether it was a good idea to marry their child. I know my mother made a conscious decision to be different from her father when it came to raising her children. My mother didn’t call us stupid or lunkhead like grandpa did his children growing up. But as I’ve grown older and wiser (ha ha), I recognize some of my grandather in her parenting style and personality.
Hell, I can recognize both my in-laws in my wife. Mrs. Odesio made a conscious decision to avoid being like her father by paying for basic maintenance on the house and her car instead of redneck jury rigging like her dad did. I can even recognize my own father in myself in both how I look and behave.
If you grow up in a household where dad treats mom like shit you might just accept it as the way things are. So little Susie just accepts it as normal that her boyfriend is verbally abusive because that’s how it is at home. Every relationship is like that, right? Or maybe little Johnny treats his girlfriend like shit because that’s what dad does to mom. And dad loves mom, right?
Some people recreate their parents’ worst flaws and others do everything they can to be as unlike their parents as humanly possible.
I’m one of the latter sort. Now that I have a child, I can’t fathom some of the things my parents did. It breaks my brain that anyone could treat a child that way. Or a partner, for that matter.
I recognize that, even though I have made a Herculean effort to be different than my parents, there are many ways in which I am still similar: sometimes by nature, sometimes by culture. It’s a lifelong journey to mitigate the worst of it.
Of the last three women I lived with (and the last I married), none are like their mothers, or have become more like them with the passage of time. Only tiny bits here and there, but the personalities, interests, and yes, even looks, are nothing alike.
I read this too fast as
I got married in a very formal three piece tailcoat suit & top hat in the single stall mens toilet in a dive bar in a small village . . .
There are quirks, kinks and downright weird shit, but the toilet would have been a little crowded.
Although if I ever get married again, there is, in fact, a free public lavatory in the suburb where I live, so I will consider that venue.
It is right next to a public park area, so ideal for the reception. Except homeless people live in the lavatory, which could become awkward.