I kicked off the Summer of 2006 by dutifully attending my little lady’s, coworker’s wedding. How ‘bout you? There really is nothing like migrating to the makeshift parquet after nibbling on some drippy fish for an earful of the Commodores’ “Brick House” at 1pm on a glorious summer Sunday afternoon. I prayed for death, but it never arrived.

Unfortunately, the wedding season is again in full swing. And my recently-received invitation for yet another Labor Day ceremony has sent me sprinting to the keyboard. It’s time to lay down the law. This fucking nonsense has run amok.

This writing is in reference to one of the most offensive social crimes existing today: The Inappropriate Wedding Weekend Selection. For example, why would a couple choose to have their wedding on the same weekend that the Final Four is being played? You're stuck eating chipped beef next to the groom's boring cubicle-mate while March Madness is dramatically unfolding somewhere on a 57-inch HDTV.

In response, I have created The Wedding Weekend Selection Guide (patent pending), which assists couples-to-be in eliminating inappropriate weekends from the calendar year faster than an undiagnosed dyslexic gets bounced from his first grade spelling bee. This manual is destined to revolutionize the inherently self-indulgent process undertaken by engaged couples everywhere.

Throughout the wedding planning process, the y-chromosome toting member of the engaged couple, if he's smart, chooses with great selectivity the battles he wages with his fiancée. Numerous occasions will present themselves when it is clear that a foot needs to be put down. Most of these are not worth the hardship. However, nothing, I repeat nothing, matters more than the date on which the wedding itself is chosen to fall. Let the domineering, soon to be mommy dearest-in-law choose the music, the flowers, the reception location, even the color of the groomsmen's socks. Anything but the weekend you both promise, in front of a large audience, that you will never have sex with anyone else, EVER again.

The tendency for couples to temporarily lose their minds during the wedding planning process is a well-known and generally accepted fact. They become the unfortunate victims of an event that has grown unchecked for years. The wedding ceremony itself, the sacred and outdated institution between a man and a woman, has evolved into a sideshow. It's no longer in the middle ring with the dancing elephants like it used to be. Instead, it's now lost in the shadows, behind the trapeze net, sharing a lesser stage with the bearded midget woman juggling World War II-era hand grenades.

The reception is the main event these days. It has essentially morphed into a contest to see who can throw the greatest party that any of their friends or relatives has ever attended. And 99 out of 100 times, it fails miserably. It is directly attributable to the pressure associated with this said contest that the lovely couple loses any semblance of the sanity they brought into the wedding planning process. They become selfish, egocentric, and arrive confidently at the conclusion that society exists solely to anticipate with great fervor their coming day. Things or ideas which would have previously struck them as asinine, now begin to make perfect sense.

One example of this mystical transformation is the rationale conjured in justifying the selection of a holiday weekend on which to hold this wedding. We, as a society, live for holiday weekends. Particularly those enjoyable little three-day treasures. These diamonds in the rough provide people temporary respite from the grind of the traditional five-day workweek. We need these weekends for our sanity. To have one pulled from our clutches like a five year old's much-needed security blanket is a bitter, cold thing to do. A violation of this principle should result in the perpetrator's being forced to spend their honeymoon on the island which Hannibal Lecter was intended to be sent.

Where the closest of friends are seated.

The calendar year is not as lengthy as the crazy planning couple believes it to be. Netting out weekends prohibited from wedding selection, the calendar shrinks like a poor fella's manhood at a New England pool-opening party. This essay is meant to set the record straight and attempts to do so via the Wedding Weekend Selection Guideline (patent still pending). This matrimonial detail should be made priority number-one by the engaged couple. For if you do not, I refuse to be held responsible for the resulting black mark on your record. Trust me in that friends and family will take the grudge of unwilling attendance to the grave. Their misgivings will forever remain unmentioned; society's rules of decorum prevent it. However, the couple will be scorned in private conversations for years to come as a result of their rude wedding weekend selection.

The following weekends are NOT eligible for matrimonial selection:

-The three-day holiday weekend category which includes: the Martin Luther King, President's, Memorial, Labor and Columbus Day Weekends. Memorial and Labor Day weekends are key components to society's summer of fun, and a wedding should never occupy either of them.

MLK and President's Day weekends exist strategically to get us through that grueling mental stretch post-New Year's, when the specter of the coming year's obstacles lay dauntingly ahead. These two weekends are society’s special time, and should not be stolen from us with ignorance. And Columbus Day is similar in its soothing affect on the psyche, but this weekend gets us through the post-Summer depression period.

-Amazingly enough, Thanksgiving weekend has been and continues to be a popular choice for weddings. The most common yet nonsensical rationale given for this selection is that "people will appreciate the extra travel day and thank us for it." Yeah, as if there aren't enough travel requirements associated with this Tryptophan-overdosing holiday, but now we have to drag ourselves from the rack that Friday morning, practically crippled from the annual Turkey Bowl game the morning prior, pack up a garment bag and endure some more? Please. This is a major reason why we have road rage on our highways, folks.

-Any major sporting weekend. What’s that, you don’t agree? Fine Bridezilla, have it your way. Ignore this suggestion and pick a weekend on which a major sporting event falls. Just don't teardrop into your mimosa while every guy at the reception huddles around the 13-inch television at the bar as the Bee Gee's echo across the empty dance floor. It's a fact of life that sports play an integral part in a man's life. That reality should be acknowledged without question. Let's avoid engaging in a debate about the morality and righteousness of this fact, and instead move on to the acceptance of it, shall we? Because it's not gonna change. EVER.

-Adhering completely to this rule, there is a crucial five-week period beginning approximately the first weekend in March through the second week in April. The collegiate men's basketball conference championships, otherwise known as Championship Week, progresses into the NCAA basketball championship tournament, which runs into the Masters at Augusta National. Scheduling your wedding on any of these weekends is clearly against the rules and done at your peril. I guarantee that it will be a disastrous and forgettable event if you do.

-Fortunately, there is some ineligible weekend overlap with regard to the college football bowl season. It falls within that previously mentioned three-week holiday period around New Year's. Therefore, the bowl season doesn't need to be accounted for here. However, college football "rivalry week" doesn't fall within this time frame and as such, the weekend before Thanksgiving is now out of the running as well. Sorry.

-Those falling within the three-week period beginning the weeke