I've got a friend getting married next weekend, and frankly, I've got cold feet. It's too soon. I'm just not ready to commit to another wedding season. Especially not after last year - six weddings in five months. (Three of those occurred in one eight-day stretch.) I'm still having nightmares about huge, taffeta bows.

However, one good thing came out of going to so many functions. I have a pretty good idea of what to do - and not to do - if I ever have a wedding. The first thing that comes to mind is music. A lot of my friends decided to forgo the traditional DJ, in favor of MP3 files and a couple of speakers. It's definitely cheaper. Who really needs someone to hit the "play" button? On the other hand, I discovered that sometimes a DJ can provide some powerful...perspective in creating a song list. At one reception, they played "Shout." It was fun, everyone did the moves and sang along. The next song was "Chicken Dance." I decided to sit that one out. Imagine my horror when those were immediately followed by "Cotton Eye Joe" and "The Macarena." Another guest and I started making bets. Could it possibly get any worse? And then we had the clincher: "Hokey Pokey." If only they had had a DJ with veto power.

While DJs may seem an unnecessary expense, almost no one is willing to skimp when hiring a photographer. I learned firsthand that a good photographer is able to capture absolutely every aspect of the day. Take, for instance, the one at my brother's wedding: she was able to get a shot of me during the bouquet toss. There I am, hair done up and in my bridesmaid's dress, standing in the back and pointedly staring at the ground. What an eye for detail.

Finally, while so many aspects of those weddings differed: from the colors, to the size of the wedding party or guest list, one thing did not. Almost everyone served garlic mashed potatoes. I'm happy to report that it's difficult to mess those up. I'll definitely be adding them to my menu. I guess it's hard not to please hungry guests with a free meal, though. Except for one wedding I didn't attend, but heard about. Apparently, the bride's favorite food is chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-a. So that's what they served. No bread, no french fries, not even garlic mashed potatoes. Just chicken nuggets. Luckily, the bridesmaid's dresses were also slit to the navel, so no one was really talking about the food.