Dealing with the druncle.

Your wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life, and the one thing that can leave a bad taste and that happens far too often is having to deal with the druncle. Alcohol, families that haven’t spoken in years, long-standing family feuds and the general Irish temperament can all lead to a nasty incident of violence at a wedding.

All is not lost though, there are a few practical steps that can lessen the chance of this happening, or lessen its impact if it does.

The simplest step is to have an alcohol-free wedding, but this is not always very popular. If you are going to have alcohol at the wedding sticking to champagne, wine and possibly beer is preferable to having hard liquor available. Some way of limiting the availability of alcohol, such as only a certain number of bottles of wine per table can also work wonders.

The second step is to appoint an unofficial “peacekeeper”. This would preferably be someone who is very social, on friendly terms with all the guests, and someone who will keep his wits about him not indulge too much in the liquid refreshments. His main task for the evening will be to keep an eye out for trouble, and to defuse any situation before it gets out of hand.

There are some simple strategies for diffusing tense situations. If someone is getting agitated or argumentative, the easiest way to defuse the situation is for someone to ask that person for help with something, moving chairs, putting the presents in the car or any activity that will interrupt their focus and place some distance between the two protagonists.

Another simple strategy for dealing with a druncle is for someone to engage that person in conversation. If you can get your cousin Mary to ask uncle Pat to advise her about the car she wants to buy, Uncle Pat may forget that he was getting annoyed with cousin Jimmy.

Handing this function over to someone else will avoid the embarrassing situation of the bride or groom having to get involved in any unpleasantness.