Advice from Ant

I Do Countdown: 27 Days

It had been a while since Anthony Venutolo and me had snagged coffee and pie. We met at the Skyway Diner around the corner because there's a saucy waitress who gives us a break at bill time and never listens too closely to the conversation. I believe she's a bit sweet on the Jersey boy but isn't everybody. It's that smouldering doe-eyed look of his, and his smooth way around the words. Like good scotch on clear ice, that's Anthony.

Not that I'm immune to his Soprano charms, but I got my own guy, a stand-up guy, and we're gettin' married on September 25. It's a small wedding, as most weddings go, but there's still a fair bit of stress involved. I think that's why I wanted to chill a bit, sit down with Ant over some peach pie and a cup of diner coffee and get his advice on getting hitched.

Anthony hasn't been married all that long. He's only a coupla years shy of being a newlywed, something the blushy waitress either doesn't know or doesn't care about. They share a life and a passion for each other and a child and I get the impression that Ant pretty much has it all, waitress bedamned.

I'm telling Ant about my brainiac idea to burn a disc of romantic music for each of our wedding guests (what was I thinking????); about me making my beloved look like a skunk when I attempted to give him a few streaks; about how I can't stop eating and I'm worried that my dress isn't going to fit and Anthony interrupts and says, "forget about it. Go to Vegas."

He then gives me five reasons why I should do just that:

1. Um .... it's frikkin' Vegas!!! It's the kind of thing everyone secretly wants to do deep down but may not have the cajones to pull off. Eff it. Do it. You'll never forget it. Where else can Elvis marry and sing to you??

2. Pick a great chapel and then brag about who else got hitched there. In my case ... some dude named SINATRA ... Oh yeah and Paul Newman, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Michael Jordan, Britney Spears, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.

3. You could take HALF of that wedding loot... HALF ... and live it up like you've never lived it up before. Take a few special friends or family and foot some of the bill if you can. For example, on my wedding night, we all sprang for tickets to see LOVE, the Cirque Beatle show at the Mirage. Beforehand, we ate at Emeril's steakhouse at The Venetian in the glass room off the kitchen. There were no no menus. Chef just came in and said, "whaddya want..." Plus they paired it with wine flights... Expensive, but worth it.

4. Let's just say it's the perfect town for a bachelor or bachelorette party. 'Nuff said on that one...

5. You could live it up like a Saudi prince. With the economy in the crapper, rooms are dirt cheap. DIRT CHEAP. Plus I can teach you to $20 trick to get an upgrade. Let's just say, it's NEVER failed. I've always been upgraded. Some of the nicest rooms I've ever stayed at in my life were in Sin City Hotels.

If you've never read about Anthony's wedding, you must, must go to his blog, Bukowski's Basement, and give it a read. Only Anthony would get married on the same day as 15 zilllion other people and then have his photo show up in newspapers all over the free world.

Doesn't Anthony Venutolo look remarkably like Elvis?
And doesn't he look great in red?
Y'know, not everybody can pull off fringe...

Thanks for the advice, Ant. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna take it, not with a church booked and plans made. But you were darned persuasive. I actually thought about it for a while. Maybe it was your Joisey boy good looks. Or maybe it was that Elvis dude in the red fringes. Or maybe it was the peach pie.

Two guesses what Anthony's wedding song was, and the first guess doesn't count.