Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! While this week may have been mellow in many aspects, it has certainly been pretty crazy around here as well! As I mentioned yesterday in my repost of “Office Olympics” we have been busy looking at new houses lately and this has certainly been a busy process, not to mention a stressful one. On a lighter note, the 2024 Olympics are kicking off tonight with their opening ceremony in Paris. I’m sorely jealous not to be able to see it in person, but it will still be cool to see Paris again even if I cannot be there. My last chance to relive my time there was while watching the Netflix movie Under Paris so I expect this will involve fewer sharks. Incidentally, if you have not yet seen this film I absolutely recommend it, including watching it in the native French with English subtitles. But enough about all that, let us talk about Phyllis’s wedding!
Leading up to the big day, Jim was able to see the payoff to one of his “classic” pranks. For weeks, he has been finding times to reboot his computer (which sets off a notification sound) and would then offer Dwight an Altoid mint. Turns out he has been recreating the experiment of Pavlov’s dog that he learned about in school. For those unfamiliar, the experiment involved Ivan Pavlov who created an experiment with dogs. He found that dogs normally salivate when given food, and when he provided food he began to ring a bell at the same time. Over time, they were conditioned to the point that he could ring the bell without providing food, and they began to salivate because the bell meant food. In this scenario, Dwight was conditioned to anticipate a mint to clear his palate when he heard the sound of Jim’s computer. Creative and scientific, so I do like those aspects, but I feel Jim put way too much time into this gag that could’ve been better spent. How much paper do you really sell, Jim?
Now for the main event, this week was Phyllis’s wedding to Bob Vance (Vance Refrigeration) and you’ve never seen a happier bride. It was a beautiful day, and she invited the entire office so it was shaping up to be an amazing event. However, she did ask Michael to essentially be part of the wedding party by pushing her father in his wheelchair down the aisle with her. Because of this, he is likening himself as the father of the bride in such ways that because he signs her paychecks he is also contributing to funding the wedding and such. This goes, most likely exactly as you would expect. He is doing everything in his power to be in all of the photographs, he comes to see her in her room as she is getting ready, he tries to interject with a 45-minute long speech. In her defense, Phyllis did this in order to wrangle a six week honeymoon. The question is, was it really worth it in the end? You might be able to gloss over some of what happened, but when he interrupts the actual ceremony it gets very hard. To our excitement, while escorting Phyllis down the aisle her father is able to stand up and finish walking her down himself. Not one to be overshadowed, Michael proceeds to escort the wheelchair down the aisle and then took it upon himself to stand with the groomsmen. The patience that Phyllis had cannot be matched, that is for sure. Ultimately, Michael is escorted out during the wedding reception after he tried to take over the entire evening and tasked Dwight with being the bouncer. But things ultimately work out in the end because Michael was able to help track down Phyllis’s uncle Al who had gone missing.
If you thought that was crazy, there was plenty of other things going on behind the scenes. Turns out, Phyllis used a ton of ideas for her wedding that Pam was originally using for hers to Roy. The wedding invitations, flowers choices, wedding dress, and evening hiring Kevin’s band to play the reception (shout out to Scrantonicity). I don’t know if it was just her feeling lonely or because she felt like she was at her own wedding, but it seems it rekindled a little something between Pam and Roy because I saw them heading out together holding hands before the night was up. I caught Jim seeing that too and he certainly had an odd look on his face so he didn’t realize that was coming either.
And then there was Dwight, he got it in his head that there was a guarantee of wedding crashers at the wedding. I guess he had seen the movie Wedding Crashers but this was in error, turns out he thought he was a seeing a movie about bear attacks and he sat through the entire film waiting for the bear. That’s the thing with bear attacks, you never see them coming. But as a gift to Phyllis, he spent the entire day trying to catch potential crashers. I saw him talking to uncle Al right before he went missing, but otherwise I don’t believe he actually caught anyone. How many people actually crash weddings, anyway? Perhaps his biggest mistake was how he famously stated that “there are too many people, we need a new plague.” Still think that Dwight? You got to see a global pandemic so I believe you got your wish.
Overall, I think we really need to call out that so many people did things at this wedding you shouldn’t do and we can all learn from them. First, do not try to take over a wedding like Michael did. Unless it is your wedding, just sit in your seat and keep to yourself. I don’t care if you are someone’s sister, the mother of of someone getting married, or so-and-so’s best friend, it is not your day and you don’t matter so stop talking. And that includes reception toasts; do not give a toast unless you were specifically asked to, and try to keep it brief. I’ve sat through too many toasts that were all the exact same where the maid-of-honor has some hilarious story about the bride. The stories are all the same and as I mentioned, keep the story brief because you are not the bride. For people like Pam, instead of venting about how someone took all of your ideas maybe you should see it as a compliment that she loved your style. It is not your day, you called off your wedding, so keep it to yourself. Stick to the dress code, and only wear white if you are told that it is okay. I’m talking about Kelly who always has to be the center of attention; this is a wedding so dress appropriately. Besides skipping the white, I am sick of going to weddings and seeing people in casual shorts, I mean how hard is it to have a pair of slacks when you are attending a formal wedding? And rant over, I just get a bit worked up with how crazy people can get over weddings. But Phyllis was gracious, patient, and was the most beautiful bride.
And that was our Dunder Mifflin wedding! I can’t say I’ve been to many weddings like this, if anyone has their own crazy wedding stories, please share in the comments! I hope everyone else is going to watch the Olympics, starting with the opening ceremony tonight. And I want to leave with sharing two pieces of Michael Scott quotes from his wedding toasts.
“Webster’s Dictionary defines “wedding” as the fusing of two metals with a hot torch. Well, you know something. I think you guys are two metals. Gold medals.”
“Phyllis and Bob: their celebrity couple name would be Phlob.”
Thank you all, have a great weekend and I’ll see you around the Breakroom!
