Every once in a very rare and wonderful while, two people who are exactly right for one another manage to meet on this expansive and overly-populated spinning blue and green marble we call Earth and eventually they will stand together beneath an altar and get married in front of their family and their friends and everyone witnessing this spectacular union will understand that they are taking in the sight of something truly special that will last forever.
This is not one of those times.
On the surface – like, the tippy top layer of that surface – the Schwartz/Maloney wedding has everything that should make The Big Day perfect. Clear weather? Check. Dogs who refrain from sh*tting as they make their way down the aisle? Check. Candy already set up at the reception beside ten thousand dollars worth of flowers that almost caused the groom to have a seizure? Check. Extra dish towel invites on hand to mop up the puddles of blood just in case this is the night Kristen decides to slit Sandoval’s throat or Jax realizes who he has become and reacts by smashing his face clear into a mirror to destroy the monster staring back at him? Check. A bridal party comprised of people who hate one another and have slept with one another and have called one another fat and psychotic and whorish and stupid? Check!
But despite those wonderful elements glowing like Molly-spiked fairy dust, I must confess that looking at this temporary televised joy is making me feel rather uncomfortable. I guess my reaction is due to the fact that, along with everyone else who has watched this show for the last bunch of years, I’ve been privy to all that came before with this couple – and most of it has been seriously horrible. I mean, we all watched Katie give Schwartz a proposal deadline and then we cringed when he caved and handed her a ring. We listened when countless people loudly declared the bride a savagely cruel drunk who decided (while briefly sober!) to proclaim to the universe at large that her fiancé’s penis doesn’t work. We witnessed Schwartz receive intervention after intervention by concerned friends who implored him not to marry a person he argues with so frequently, arguments that rarely end with any sort of legitimate resolution. And we stared quizzically as Katie and Schwartz came to the ridiculous conclusion that the very best way to deal with their issues was to completely ignore them until after the wedding because postponing the difficult discussions until they’re legally bound to one another makes so much more sense. On top of all that, these two have chosen to display their chaotic relationship to anyone who gets basic cable and they’ve done it through a lens of “reality” and now here they stand and I’m pretty sure we’re all supposed to pretend that everything is and will forever be perfect for them, but since I’m fairly normal, I kind of find it impossible to jump on that preposterous bandwagon – though I will say that a marriage that begins with James Kennedy nowhere near the premises maybe stands a chance.
There have been hundreds of despicable half-humans who have appeared on reality shows throughout the years and I would never place either Katie or Schwartz into that category. They are not completely delusional and damaging like their good buddy Kristen and they are not batsh*t crazy like Vicki Gunvalson or Kelly Dodd or Brandi Glanville or Porsha Williams or about thirty-seven other walking horror shows from The Real Housewives. They have never attempted to knock even one set of teeth out of the mouth of a friend like the participants of every season of The Bad Girls Club and neither has spit a humongous ball of phlegm into another person’s face like one of Flavor Flav’s classy romantic hopefuls did many moons ago on Flavor of Love. Katie and Schwartz are clearly not awful people and I wish them absolutely no ill will because that kind of sh*t takes energy and I’m already incredibly busy chanting incantations so two men I know will suffer from impotence until the very last second of time. But just because I wish Katie and Schwartz well, it doesn’t mean I (or any other rational viewer) can now just choose to overlook all the misery they have so willfully projected for five seasons. But there is an upside here! I know you’re thinking the upside is that Katie doesn’t choose a crop top for her wedding gown like Scheana did for her very first trip down the aisle – and you’d be right to cheer such a thing – but what I’m talking about is that tonight we get to meet Schwartz’s triplet brothers! And just so everyone knows, I took a break from chanting for the scrotums of the two men I hate to fall right off to instead bellow a prayer that these triplets have names that rhyme and that they look like a cross between a My Little Buddy doll and Chucky from Child’s Play. Come on, you guys. I cannot possibly be the only one who has imagined what these boys look like only to settle on a vision of all three of them decked out in overalls. Back a sister up.
We’ll meet those brothers a little later on – once they finally catch a flight since they missed the first one – but before that can happen, it’s time for some more pre-wedding planning. Yes, the moment has come when we get to witness Katie and Schwartz walking the grounds of their wedding site with one of the staffers of the Twenty Mile House so they can choose the exact tree under which tacos and tequila will be served during the rehearsal dinner and I am of two thoughts about such a thing. First, f*ck all of my friends who made me trek out to some godforsaken restaurant in the middle of New Jersey and then served me a piece of overcooked salmon the night before their weddings. Did they not once consider – not even for a millisecond – that we could have all been eating tacos instead? I mean, if there’s the possibility for a fix-in’s bar, I’d travel anywhere. I’d watch Satan’s hemorrhaging sphincter marry Lucifer’s bloody ulcer if tacos were part of the deal! (Obviously, by Satan’s hemorrhaging sphincter and Lucifer’s bloody ulcer I am speaking of James and Kristen. Duh.) But despite my excitement at just being able to look at tacos on my television screen (cut me a break; I’m off carbs these days), I’m a little concerned that tequila will be served to the bride since every single person she has ever interacted with in her life has been sure to stick on a microphone and then announce directly into a camera how horribly she behaves when any of that stuff makes its way into her system. I guess if she acts up, Schwartz can just add that moment to the list of things they swear they’ll deal with after the wedding.
As for Katie, she’s calm and just slightly stoned and I highly recommend that people slip her edibles laced with weed every hour on the hour because she’s far more enjoyable to watch when she’s not screaming about someone’s horrific lack of loyalty. Schwartz is happy, too. His mother just showed up to be there for his big day and he’s enough of a fine son to offer her a shot, a joint, and a glass of wine within thirty seconds and I don’t care that Schwartz and I are close in age; I am completely willing to be his mother if he’s that solicitous upon my arrival.
Poor Jax is not nearly as happy as the bride and groom because somehow he’s responsible for getting the triplets on a new flight and he’s so frazzled that he bungles the English language yet again and he does it while wearing a cornflower blue blazer that sort of makes me wish I’d been stricken with colorblindness. (Seriously, nothing is more worse than watching this idiot wear that f*cking jacket and try to form full sentences and, yes, I realize that I sound tense, but my edible has yet to kick in.) In a far less anxiety-ridden place, the bridal party is toasting Schwartz and settling in for a great few days while in some nearby dwelling of misery, Scheana tells her husband how great everything seems to be shaping up while he does his very best to completely ignore her. His monosyllabic responses to his wife are tough to watch and I feel badly for Scheana and I hope she eventually responds to his blandness by torching her wedding crop top in front of him and then twerks on the ashes.
Since the tacos won’t be served for a few more hours, the group heads out to go tubing and Stassi is wearing yet another swimsuit with a high neckline that confuses me terribly, but the good news is that Sandoval finally made it and he showed up with fifty cases of Coors Light because those edibles will not last forever. He also has some good news: the triplets got on another plane and they will be there by sundown and I want them to show up wearing matching overalls so badly that I can’t even stand it.