We begin in the conference room with a list of wedding do's and don'ts. Do: Have a good time, dance when it's appropriate, eat dinner. Don't: Make a big scene, cry, talk to our family, firecrackers. Oh, and don't mention the pregnancy, because Pam's grandma is really conservative. ...Yeah, that's going to go well.
Michael, of course, plans to use the wedding as a pick-up opportunity. Dwight thoughtfully makes him a CD to play to women he brings back to his room: "Hello. My name is Dwight Schrute. If you are listening to this, you are a lucky woman Michael has seduced. Ah, to be in your shoes. 'What's next?', you're probably wondering. Don't be scared of your night in heaven..." Aaaand that's the first of many laugh-out-loud moments for me in the next hour.
Unfortunately for Michael, he never gets to use the CD: he can't get a room at the hotel, or scam Dwight into sharing with him. And I can see why, since apparently Dwight is some sort of chick magnet in Niagara Falls. Attention, ladies of the wedding party: Not all guys wearing howling wolf t-shirts are Bret from "Flight of the Conchords."
At the rehearsal dinner, Michael predictably tries to hone in on toasts, to the point where he toast-jacks Jim's brothers. At first it seems like a blessing, since they were mostly just insulting their wives, but Michael's "toast" consists of a standup routine about Smartcars. Jim steps in with his own contribution:
"Four years ago, I was just a guy who had a crush on a girl who had a boyfriend. And I had to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do, which was to wait. And don't get me wrong, I flirted with her...I just had little moments with a girl who saw me as a friend. And a lot of people told me I was crazy to wait this long for a date with a girl who I worked with, but I think that even then I knew that I was waiting for my wife."
Aaaand then he blows it by accidentally letting slip that Pam is pregnant. When Michael jumped back in, I initially thought it was going to be one of those "Michael improbably saves the day" moments, but instead we get a lecture on how you can't expect people living together and having lots of consensual sex to be careful every time, because it's just a different sensation, people. Oh. My. God. And Jim's toast: "To waiting."
We don't have to wait long for Michael to improbably save the day, though - he's apparently great with old people since his grandma used to be his best friend, so he calms Pam's grandma down by telling her the baby will be named after her: Sylvia. Or Sylvio.
The night picks up after that, with a dance party in Andy's room. But since nothing can ever go well for Andy, he tears his scrotum doing the splits with car keys in his pocket. Ooouuuch. Pam, of course, is the only one sober enough to drive him to the hospital. Eight hours before her wedding. Not to digress, but how much do you have to want to impress a girl to attempt the splits with no prior history of success? And how drunk do you have to be? Because seriously? That's a terrible, terrible idea. But it is Andy we're talking about, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
The next day, despite the lack of sleep and the quality time with Andy and his torn scrotum, Pam looks gorgeous in her dress. Gorgeous. Unfortunately, the double-take she does when her best friend mentions her infatuation with Dwight (yes, Dwight) tears Pam's veil, and she has a mini-breakdown and calls Jim to talk her off the ledge. Well, I guess if you're five months pregnant you can probably get away with breaking a few wedding day rules. He not only assures her that she's just as pretty as he'd imagined she'd look, but cuts his tie in half so they match. Awww! So rather than continuing to be driven crazy by their wedding guests, Jim and Pam make a break for it. Seriously. They run away.
An hour later they return, much happier. Pam's grandma shows up, but the rest of the wedding isn't exactly as Jim and Pam had envisioned. Or rather, it's exactly as they had envisioned in their nightmares: their guests copy the "Forever" wedding dance. Which is why Jim made a backup plan the day he saw the YouTube video: He and Pam ran off to get pre-married on a boat at Niagara Falls. Did anyone else tear up a little? No? Neither did I. Jim: "The boat was actually Plan C, the church was Plan B, and Plan A was marrying her a long time ago. Pretty much the day I met her." Odds and Ends and Magical Moments:
- Dwight's refusal to honor Pam's sensitive pregnant stomach by eating his hardboiled eggs elsewhere results in a chain vomiting reaction the likes of which I haven't seen since that amusement park scene in "Problem Child 2." Oh, and he probably does brush his teeth with butter and clay. And beets.
- How hilarious was Dwight's Google-based dossier on Pam's female relatives? You'd think his creepy law enforcement-worshipping tendencies would bear more fruit than Craigslist listings and high school sports scores.
- Only Andy would reserve the honeymoon suite the night before the wedding. Did he think it would impress the ladies?
- Jim's parents seem nice - not at all like the kind of people who would cement a terrifying clown picture to their wall.
- Kevin plans to use the wedding as an opportunity to jazz up his style...with a toupee. After his smelly shoes are incinerated by the hotel, he's not only sporting a toupee at the wedding, but a pair of kleenex boxes on his feet to boot.
- Erin thoughtfully gives Andy her shawl to sit on at the wedding, since the figures the wood is hard on his damaged penis. "It's my scrotum. And it was. Thank you." ...Is it love?
- Michael gifts the happy couple a handcrafted portrait rather than cash, since he gives them cash every week. It's...a lovely frame. "And I have another one of them in the nude. But that one is for me." You know, he's so obsessed with Jim that I can't be 100% sure he's joking.
- Dwight gifts them some turtle-eating gear. And a turtle. But come on, even if you're down with eating an adorable turtle, that little guy couldn't have much meat on his bones, could he?
- Stanley got them a toaster. Or...saved the toaster he got Pam and Roy?
- The wedding march. Andy and his walker got me started laughing out loud, and I pretty much kept it up through the whole thing. Stanley and his booty-shaking, Michael and Pam's mom (I'm hoping that will crop up again in the future), and of course the happy couple: Kevin and Oscar. Pretty much everyone, really. Amazing.
- I want a Jim. Make it happen, world.
- Andy: "Not only is Erin really sweet and cute, she smells like my mom."
- Jim: "Is there something about being a manager that causes you to say stupid things?" Michael: "I have not found that to be the case."
- Phyllis: "I think Pam ran away because she knew deep down she wouldn't be a good wife."
- Oscar: "How long do you take to pee?" Kevin: "The peeing is fast, Oscar. It's getting my tie back on."
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