Expectations are everything. At the end of the reception, the disappointments starting pouring out of my wife and she proceeded to dress me down about what a lousy job I did planning the wedding and the reception.

Usually at most weddings, something in the plans goes wrong. At our wedding, the limousine didn’t show up.

My wife insisted that she go to our house to get dressed for the wedding. This is a Russian custom. During that time, all of her relatives called the house and offered congratulations.

Her Maid of Honor drove her thirty miles from the hairdresser to our house to get dressed. The limo driver was supposed to pick her up at the house and bring her to the church, forty miles away. He never showed up.

Luckily the photographer was at the house taking pictures of her getting dressed. The photographer, his son, the Maid of Honor, and my wife squeezed into his small Japanese car and headed to the church.

Her wedding dress got crushed squeezing into his compact car. Her Maid of Honor talked her into coming to the wedding. My wife cried all the way to the church.

At the end of the reception, we drove home together. My wife grabbed a bottle of champagne before our drive home.

The disappointments starting pouring out of her. She drank the entire bottle during the one-hour trip home and proceeded to dress me down about what a lousy job I did planning the wedding and the reception.

This went on for the next several hours, during which time, she called her parents, her friends, and even her old boyfriend to tell them what a bum I was. I don’t know exactly what she said in Russian, but the tone of her voice was such that the subject matter was unmistakable.