Life In The Office

Everyone is in the conference room where Jim and Pam are going over final details; like no one can bring fireworks to the wedding (which greatly upsets Dwight and Kevin). Jim makes a comment that the next time everyone will be at this office, he’ll be married. Dwight says, “We’ll see.” Jim and Pam also mention that no one should bring up her pregnancy at the wedding because not everyone in her family knows she’s expecting, especially not her grandmother.  It seems that she’s very old fashioned and would not approve.  Angela, being her typical self, chimes in that the reason she doesn’t approve because it’s wrong.   Jim and Pam also gently remind Michael that he has no role in the service and is not to speak at the wedding at all. No speeches, nada! 

Kevin has a talking head where he says he wants to wow everyone. He knows he’s not a snappy dresser, but he has a secret weapon to change that. He bought a hair piece. It’s in a case looking like a dead animal. Kevin is so proud. 

Dwight steals Jim’s guest list and researches all the female guests to see who is single in order to help Michael who is hoping to meet someone. 

Next we see the staff getting ready to leave. Erin leaves a message on the voice mail that the office will be closed for a company wedding for two days. She’s grinning from ear to ear. Obviously everyone is excited. They all go to their cars and we see that Michael has decorated his own car with cans on strings and a sign that says, “Going to a wedding”. As he drives away, we see the still full cans bursting what looks like soda from his driving.  Andy’s driving Kelly and Erin. They’re in the back seat with their iPods in. Andy wants someone (namely Erin) to sit up front with him. Kelly says no; it makes her feel like she’s in a limo. Erin doesn’t want to leave Kelly alone in the back seat. Later we see them sleeping in the backseat. Andy looks back at Erin and comments about how sweet she is, and that she smells just like his mom.

Dwight and Michael are driving up together. Dwight made Michael a CD to play in case he gets lucky. They pop it in the CD player of the car. It’s Dwight’s voice letting the “lucky lady who is hearing this CD know how just how special she is that Michael has chosen her for his seduction.” Eww! Michael is horrified.  

They get to hotel. Jim and Pam have separate rooms until the wedding night. Pam wants to see the honeymoon suite first though because she’s so excited. They are completely grossed out because the suite was rented for one night…by Andy.  Pam wants to know the cell phone of the cleaning lady to make sure the sheets have been cleaned for their honeymoon night. 

Michael goes to check in and can’t; he forgot to reserve a room.  He just figured that the block of rooms reserved would include him; it didn’t.  He asks to stay with everyone, but no one lets him.  Even Dwight refuses because he knew (after tricking Michael) that Michael wouldn’t do the same for him. Toby offers Michael the extra bed in his room, but Michael turns him down saying that Toby should get used to sleeping alone for the rest of his life.  We find out later that Michael is sleeping in the ice/soda room in the hotel. 

Now it’s off to the rehearsal dinner. We see Pam’s parents. Her dad has a very young girlfriend whom he is trying to get seated at the head table. Jim’s brothers are being their goofy selves. We meet Pam’s sister Penny as well as her old fashioned Memaw, who is frankly a bit of a bitch.  We also meet Jim’s parents.  

Speeches begin at the rehearsal dinner. Michael is upset because he thinks that he should be able to give a speech.  Jim’s brothers start off being obnoxious goofballs and invariably insult their own wives. Michael is very upset about this. He feels he’d give a better speech and stands up. He tells a comedy bit about how Smart Cars aren’t really smart and no one laughs but Dwight.  Pam looks at Jim anxiously. Jim, stands up himself to thwart Michael.  Jim delivers a heartfelt speech about how long he waited for Pam over the years he worked at Dunder Mifflin and how she viewed him as just a friend.  He said that most of his friends told him he was crazy to wait so long, but even then he knew he was waiting for his wife.  Pam looks emotional as Jim wraps up his speech and he asks everyone to raise their glass, but he slips and says no drink for Pam for “obvious reasons”.  Ouch!  It seems that Jim himself has slipped up and spilled the beans about the baby because he was trying to avoid Michael giving a speech.  He tries to cover it up by saying that Pam can’t drink because she’s an alcoholic.  Nobody buys it and Memaw immediately catches on.  As Jim is floundering trying to save the moment, Michael jumps up and goes into this painful speech about how they’re living together, which seems is also news to Memaw, and having unprotected sex… It’s brutal.

Pam is mortified and Memaw tells her she is not coming to the wedding and will be leaving in the morning.  Michael perks up as he yet may have an opportunity to commandeer a room.  He’s also overjoyed that it was Jim that screwed up and spilled about the pregnancy and not him. 

The rehearsal dinner ends and the office mates get ready for a night of partying.  Andy sets up a party in his room.  Pam is devastated after the fiasco at dinner, and she tries to go down to the bar for some distractions when she runs into Angela who offers to kick her in the stomach instead.  Pam says she just wanted to get out of her room for a while and didn’t plan on drinking.  Angela offers to go with her.  Pam decides she’d rather be alone in her room instead. 

Michael knocks on Memaw’s door and asks to come in.  She says she’s trying to sleep, but can’t figure out how to turn off the TV.  Michael helps her out by pressing the power button on the TV and then launches into a whole speech about how this isn’t the 1800’s and how while back then, Pam might be considered a whore, today her actions are perfectly normal and couples have pre-marital sex and that they should celebrate that.  Surprisingly, Michael convinces Memaw to come to the wedding by telling her that Jim and Pam are going to name the baby after her.  They are going to call the baby Memaw.  Memaw corrects Michael by telling him her name is Sylvia.  Michael says that if it’s a boy, they’ll name him Sylvi-o.  While this is good news for Pam, Michael is still out of a room. 

Down at the bar, Oscar and Kevin are sitting at a table discussing his hair piece.  Andy tells them to come to his room as his party will include babes.  Kevin comments that the party will be “epic”.  Andy then admits to the camera that he doesn’t know any babes to invite to the party. 

Meanwhile Dwight and Michael are in Dwight’s room.  Dwight is dressed in a t-shirt depicting a wolf howling at the moon.  Dwight says it will attract the women because of the howling he does during sex.  Michael is disgusted at first, but then promptly joins in.  They leave the room howling together. 

Everyone is mingling and Michael is actually doing quite well for himself.  He’s talking to this beautiful blonde woman and she actually seems to be interested in him.  Just then Dwight comes over all excited and announces to Michael that he has met twins and that Michael should come meet them.  He tells the beautiful lady that he’s “sorry, but you understand, it’s twins.” (I happen to know a set of twins myself who spent about 9 months kicking me before I even met them.)  The twins turn out to be identical, overweight, males in about their mid-30’s. (The twins I know are a lot cuter; not identical, but also two males.)  Michael is dismayed that he left a gorgeous blonde to meet two men.  Dwight, however, cannot stop staring at them as he is completely fascinated by the identical twins. (See I knew there was a reason for me to be doing this recap.  It’s a twin thing.  Hey, how did that get there?  Sorry I couldn’t find a picture of the twins from the episode, but like I said, they are a lot cuter.) 

The party in Andy’s room kicks into high gear and we see Meredith in the middle of her dancing co-workers doing the Robot.  Andy of course must prove that he can do a better Robot and pushes Meredith aside to show off his moves.  He does a little Robot, a little Running Man and then he does a banana SPLIT.  Predictably, Andy injures himself performing the split and needs to be taken to the emergency room.  Alas, the only sober person able to drive Andy to the hospital is Pam.  Andy is helped to Pam’s room and explains to her that he had his keys in his pocket when he did the split which punctured his scrotum.  Pam can’t believe that she’s being asked to bring Andy to the hospital the night before her wedding and calls Jim.  However, Jim is out drinking with Michael and Dwight and is also in no condition to drive.  Pam, clearly annoyed with her groom, resigns herself to the fact that there is no one else and she will have to take care of Andy herself.  The word “scrotum” is used several times.  I challenge anyone who wishes to re-watch the show and do a scrotum tally.  Please report your findings in the comments. 

When Michael tries to go back to Dwight’s room alone to get some shut-eye, he sees a sock tied to the door handle which indicates that Dwight has indeed hooked up with someone and Michael is on his own.  We see him retreat the vending & ice machine room. 

In the morning, Andy is lying on the floor of Pam’s room bragging that he spent the night before the wedding with the bride, but she stepped on his hand on the way to the bathroom.  Pam thinks she dreamed that Andy was crying all night, but Andy assures her that it was real and he actually was crying. 

It turns out that Dwight spent the night with Pam’s best friend who is also a bridesmaid.  Michael lies to Dwight during a (unnecessary, should-have-been cut from the show) breakfast scene and says he hooked up with a European chick.  Dwight is not interested in seeing Pam’s friend again and later snubs her before the ceremony. 

We move to the church where people are filing in and leaving gifts on a table in the foyer.  Michael says he knew they wanted cash, but he gives them cash every week (like it’s his money) so he came up with something more personal.  He painted a portrait of the two of them holding hands and had it framed.  He flips the painting to reveal a very pre-schoolesque painting of Jim and Pam. 

Phyllis is wearing an extremely large, elaborate, pink hat that matches her pink suit.  The feathers keep hitting Stanley in the face.  When he complains about it, Phyllis mentions that his wife Terri always liked her hat.  It’s clear that Stanley is now openly dating his mistress and Phyllis gives her a dirty look.  It looks like Stanley and Terri are really splitsville. 

Erin offers her jacket to Andy to sit on so that it could cushion his injured penis from the hard wood of the pew.  Andy accepts and reminds Erin that it was his scrotum that was injured and not his penis.  Perhaps it’s the air of romance that surrounds a wedding, or could it be that our fair Erin has actually taken a liking to the bow-tie clad Andy? 

Much to the dismay of Angela and Oscar, Kevin arrives with his toupee on his head and empty tissue boxes on his feet, since the hotel manager had his shoes incinerated due to their smell. 

While Pam is getting ready, she accidentally tears her veil and freaks out.   She calls Jim on his cell phone who is kicking around a ball outside the church with a little boy.  She asks him to come to her even though it’s not allowed and he’s completely in awe of how beautiful she looks.  She breaks down about the veil and says that everyone is driving her crazy, she knows more than she cares to about Andy’s scrotum, and she can’t figure out why they invited all these people.  Jim promptly cuts his tie in half and says that they’re even.  We then see the two of them running away from the church hand in hand. 

Jim and Pam keep their guests waiting for the better part of an hour and everyone is speculating on where they went and when or if they will be returning.  Even Toby, with an impish grin on his face, guesses that this might be it for them.  Hmmm…what did he think would happen when Pam had Jim’s baby??

Michael asks Pam’s Mom for a snack and they get to talking about what a crappy year it’s been for both of them in the love department. 

Finally, the happy couple arrive with Pam in a flattering updo and shorter veil and the ceremony continues as scheduled—or so Jim and Pam think. 

When Jim’s brother cues the organist to stop playing, Dwight hits play on a nearby iPod and Chris Brown’s “Forever” starts to play, just like that wedding video from YouTube where the entire wedding party dances down the aisle.  Jim and Pam seem unnerved as all their family and workmates begin dancing down the aisle including some spanking moves by Phyllis and Bob, a crotch-grabbing performance by Creed, Andy shaking his thing using a walker, and Dwight with his one night stand, Pam’s friend, as he accidentally kicks her in the nose during one of his karate moves.  During the dance the camera cuts to the reveal of where Jim and Pam had gone.  They boarded The Maid of the Mist and had the captain marry them on the boat.  With their nuptials behind them, they were free to relax and enjoy whatever antics Michael and Jim’s brothers had in store for them. 

Jim and Pam say, “I do” a second time for their friends and family and everyone cheers. Later Jim reveals that he bought the Maid of the Mist tickets as soon as he saw that YouTube video since he needed to have a Plan B.  Plan A was marrying Pam in the first place.  Awww, so sweet. 

The tag scene has an excited Kevin sneaking off to the vending machine room to ice his sweaty, tired dogs and we see Michael and Pam’s mom sneaking off to her room. I wonder what wonderful surprise Pam & Jim have waiting for them when they return from their honeymoon; a new step-daddy perhaps? 

Well that’s about the long and short of it folks.  This will probably go down in LITO history as one of the longest recaps ever.  I hope you enjoyed it as well as this fantastic episode.  The writers certainly did not disappoint; it was truly a wedding to remember. 

Suri (aka HDF)