Wedding Clashers

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, wedding clashers.

Laura brings the case against her fiancé, Zach.

Laura would like to elope.

Zach thinks they should have a bigger, more traditional wedding.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

My dear girl, have you ever noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups?

Those that walk into rooms and automatically turn podcasts on, and those that walk into rooms and automatically turn them off.

The trouble is, they end up marrying each other.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do, or whatever.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he did not attend my large traditional wedding, though admittedly it was early in our friendship?

I do.

I do.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman, I don't feel bad about it, just so you know.

I know, but I think Zach does.

I didn't want to say anything, but.

Well, then this is going to be a sad podcast.

You have to say some things, Zach.

First of all, you may be seated for an immediate summary of judgments in one of your favors.

That was a mouthful today.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

I don't know.

What do we talk about

Laura?

Why don't you start?

Well, I did some Googling on the way here.

I was trying to come up with like wedding-related quotes and genres.

I was thinking that maybe you would go with like a Jane Austen type thing, but That doesn't sound very Jane Austen-y.

So it sounds like it's like a classic romantic comedy kind of thing.

If you're trying to get information from me,

I am not giving it away.

I'm just trying to.

Judge Hodgman, she's not trying to get information out of you.

She's doing a classic Who Wants to Be a Millionaire talk it out.

This is the kind of high production value entertainment that we offer on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm just going to go along with it, and I'm going to go with Martha Stewart Magazine.

Martha Stewart Magazine.

One of the wedding editions.

That's what I'm going with.

Final answer, Laura.

Final answer.

All right.

I'm writing that into the guest book, Martha Stewart Magazine, one of the wedding editions.

Zach, how are you doing today, Zach?

I'm doing very well.

Thank you for asking.

Feeling good about your chances today?

I'm feeling extremely good.

You ready to play the game?

Yes.

All right, Zach, let's play the game.

For an immediate summary judgment in your favor, can you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Was it A,

Martha Stewart Magazine, the wedding edition?

B

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, and

Westworld?

I don't know what they're mashing it up with now.

Or was it C, something else?

Zach,

what is your answer?

I think it was C,

something else.

Okay, but I would need you to provide an answer.

Would you like to phone a friend, Jesse Thorne?

I would love to phone a friend, please.

Okay, what's getting Jesse Thorne on the line?

How do they make, uh, how does it sound when you're on the phone in Canada?

Is it regular or does it go boom, boom, boom, boom?

They only have telegrams up here.

Jesse Thorne, you have your friend Zach on the line.

He's got a question for you.

Well, I don't know the cultural reference, Jesse.

Can you help?

No.

Okay, boom, boom, boom.

Friends like this.

All right, it's time for you to make your guess, Zach.

I'm going to guess

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.

The quote did reference podcasts.

Still your final answer?

I thought maybe you edited that in, but.

I did.

But I'll tell you what podcast did not stand in for.

I'll even give you this hint.

It did not stand in for giant supernatural more dogs.

It stood in for television.

You want to make that your final answer?

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.

Okay, we'll put that into the guest book.

And here's the answer.

All guesses are wrong.

It was actually a quote from the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate.

It is the main character, Raymond Shaw, talking about marriage.

And of course, Raymond Shaw in that movie is the Manchurian, well, he is not the Manchurian candidate.

He is the sleeper agent who has been hypnotized and becoming an assassin for a foreign power in the United States.

Hoping to escape from his mother's control, he elopes and marries the daughter of a liberal senator named Josie and then ends up, well, it's tragic.

He ends up assassinating her by accident.

That's what happens when you elope 98% of the time.

That's why this is such a high-stakes episode of Judge John Hodge, because Zach and Laura, you are to be wed.

Laura, you would like to elope.

Zach would like to have a traditional wedding.

And in this very dramatic episode, I'm going to decide how you're going to get married.

So, Laura, you want to elope.

Tell me why.

My reasons have a lot to do with my job.

I am an elementary school teacher.

And so a lot of my life is just like planning and performance.

And kind of, I do that all the time.

So the idea of planning a wedding doesn't exactly seem super exciting to me.

It seems kind of like a lot of what I would do at work, but I would pay money and it's really expensive.

And also, like, we're not the kind of folks who, when we socialize, we like to have like big gatherings.

We usually like to spend one or, you know, get one or two friends together and kind of socialize that way.

And,

you know, I feel like we could do a smaller tea thing with like the immediate family present and it would be, you know, more of a memory for us than kind of this big to-do that would be stressful to put together.

Laura, I can really see where you're coming from.

I'm also one of those people who doesn't ordinarily socialize with 200 people at once.

Well, I don't get it at all, frankly, Jesse, because that's a dinner at my house three nights a week.

Yeah, fair enough.

You know, everybody's different.

We call it a salon.

Laura, the classic elopement

would be that you and Zach would run off in the dead of Ontarian night.

You're in Ontario, correct?

That's correct.

All right.

But you're not native Canadians.

No, we moved here a couple months ago, or that's not a couple months ago, this summer, from San Francisco.

So our minds have been kind of effectively blown by the Canadian winter.

It's not a joke.

Welcome to Ontario, first of all.

I'm not there currently.

I only like to visit it.

You're in Kitchener, is that right?

How far is that from Toronto?

It's an hour and some change.

Yeah.

Depends on the traffic.

We didn't meet when I was in Toronto recently, did we?

No, we didn't.

I really wanted to go, but we couldn't swing it.

No, no, that's fine.

No guilt, no pressure whatsoever.

Well, that's about all the time we have for the Judge Shen Hodgen podcast.

All right, so the traditional elopement, Laura, would that you, the two of you, would run off in the Ontarian night

to Las Vegas or the equivalent in Canada, I don't know, Edmonton, and get a preacher to name you man and woman who are married.

And then you would inform your parents later.

But it sounds to me like you are open to a very small family wedding or you don't want to be married in front of anyone else.

So can I tell you my vision?

Yes, I would love to hear your vision.

I would like to go on a, take all the money that you would normally use for a wedding.

And instead, I think we should go on a big trip and then just in the middle of it, tell our folks we're going to be at this spot.

You can come and we'll have a little ceremony and then just keep on being on vacation for a period of time.

That for me would be ideal.

This is a very intriguing idea.

It's like an on-the-go destination wedding.

Yes, like you would be on a trip.

You would stop at a place.

People could rendezvous with you there or not.

But it's going to happen at that place and then you're out of there the next day.

Exactly.

And if we wanted to, you know, spend a couple days with folks and just kind of, you know, spend some time with them, that would be good.

But I feel like in terms of it being something that is for us as a couple that we enjoy, I would much rather like travel with Zach than be at a big 300-person party with him.

What is the journey going to be?

Where do you start?

Where do you get married?

Where do you end?

Well, that's kind of, we're still working that out.

We start in Kitchener.

We go to Toronto.

Yeah.

Then we go to Niagara Falls.

We could do that.

We could, since we're in Canada, we could go to Cuba.

That would be an amazing way to keep your family from attending your wedding.

But no, I think we would probably have to, you know, kind of, I've always wanted to do Peru.

What's one of my favorite things to teach is the units on South American civilizations.

And I've always wanted to see the ruins.

And so that would be like a really meaningful memory for me.

You're going to go up to Machu Picchu?

Get married up there?

People do it, I'm told.

I would imagine.

And then they collapse because you can't breathe too high up.

That's another fantastic way to keep your family away from this wedding.

That's what you want.

Llamas?

I may be speaking out of turn, but I attended a fantastic wedding.

The wedding of Kristen Shaw and Rich Blomquist.

Kristen Schall, the wonderful comedian and actor.

Rich Blomquist, the wonderful comedy writer.

They were flanked on either side by a llama during the ceremony.

It was the most adorable thing.

I was going to say, I feel like it's a thing people are doing now, where even though they have a traditional ceremony, there are just llamas there.

Or, you know what's even funnier?

Alpacas or vicunas.

Alpacas are mean.

Well, I feel, yeah, this is kind of a deep card in terms of.

All of a sudden, Zach has something to say.

well I'm not having alpacas there I have to put my foot down I will hold my silence no longer

not alpacas okay Zach how come you don't want an alpaca festival for your wedding I mean premise is you're a normal person but tell me what your vision for a wedding is please say it involves capybaras please say it involves capybaras well there are many small rodents but

No,

I don't know.

You know, I thought that we were going to get a lot of really really great ideas for how to do this wedding last year at Laura's sister's wedding because she had a real proper destination wedding where there were some 50, 60, 70 people.

And I thought that was perfectly nice.

You know, I had a great time and, you know, we could do something similar to that.

Where was it?

That was in Hilo, Hawaii.

Oh, very nice.

This sounds like the wedding to beat.

Is that your vision to just redo your future sister-in-law's wedding?

Down to the location, but maybe with llamas.

You can't do that, Zach.

You can't go and have a wedding at Laura's sister's wedding site.

All right.

Well, you know, there's a lot of really great places in San Francisco that are much closer to my family and are very beautiful.

Okay.

You know, we could rent out one of the nicer locations there, or we could make them come here.

We were actually talking about maybe renting out an entire Mexican restaurant in Toronto and doing something sort of nice there, bringing out our friends and stuff.

Every bride's dream.

Every little girl's dream of when they think of their wedding, a Mexican restaurant in Toronto.

That's what Laura wants, secretly.

If you're going to get married at a Mexican restaurant, you might as well get married at the best, right?

Right.

Well, you know, it's the thing I miss the most about California is just really delicious tacos.

And Ontario is a wonderful place, but they're not really bringing it taco-wise.

Let's take a quick break to hear about one of the other awesome shows here at Maximum Fun.

We'll be back in just a second on Judge John Hodgman.

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Court is back in session.

Let's get back into the courtroom.

All right, Zach, you seem to have a nice picture of a traditional wedding.

You want 50 to 70 people there or more?

Yeah, maybe, well, I don't know.

I feel like the problem is once you get to 50, everyone else will want to come too, and you can't really say no.

Yeah, you're beginning to see the problems that Laura is trying to avoid.

Well, you know, if it's 300 people, then it's 300 people.

But whoa, what the?

We have only one shot at this wedding thing, so hopefully.

Wow, okay.

So suddenly this escalated quickly.

In any case, Zach, your vision is maybe Laura's sister's spot in Hilo, Hawaii, maybe anywhere in San Francisco, maybe a Canadian Mexican restaurant.

It does not matter so long as there are 50 to 300 people there.

What is important about the wedding to you?

What is your, I want this to happen?

Since you seem to be kind of all over the map, literally otherwise, what is the thing that is important to you that happened at this wedding?

Well, so Judge, just some context of my life.

Last year I graduated from Berkeley, got my PhD.

And

in what field, sir?

Oh, in physics.

Very nice.

Very good.

Go Go on.

Thank you.

And, you know, well, with the academic lifestyle, we've had a very hectic year or so.

And the process of relocating our life and having all these new friends and, you know, having to say goodbye as my old friends, you know, leave.

And this is sort of a very common occurrence every few years in the academic lifestyle.

One moves around a lot.

And I thought it might be a nice way to celebrate my friends and Laura and everyone who does so much for me in my life to get together and be forced to come together into a party that they don't want to have.

Mean your friends don't want to come to this thing either?

No, I think maybe just Laura.

Got it.

So you miss your friends.

You want to have them come party with you either in Toronto or in San Francisco.

Yeah, I want to give them an excuse to come out.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

How long have you guys been engaged?

We've been engaged since May of last year.

Okay, so we're coming up on a year-long engagement.

You still have not planned the wedding?

Haven't done anything, but we've moved to Canada.

I mean, I think long engagements are fantastic.

They only become problematic after about

three years.

But

this is a somewhat longer engagement.

Is it because you have a dispute about this wedding?

You can't decide what type of wedding to have?

Well, I think at least some of it was that after Zach graduated and he was looking for a postdoc, and we just had no concept of like what country we were going to be living in or even if we would be able to, you know, be together in the same space.

And fortunately, I was able to get my teaching license moved to Ontario, so I'm able to work up here.

But there was a really long period of just kind of total uncertainty of what the next year would look like.

And so we kind of felt like you can't really plan anything.

And so we kind of put it on the back burner.

But now that things have stabilized, we kind of have to actually get down to it and like figure some stuff through.

So you were just in transition.

It wasn't because you were having a huge fight over

Peru versus Toronto as a location for your wedding or whatever.

No, no, no, no.

And how long were you guys dating before you got engaged, if I may ask, Laura?

A while.

I would say, I'm really bad at this.

I want to say around six years.

Seven years.

Seven years.

But we actually knew each other before that.

We went to the same high school, but we didn't date.

So I've actually known Zach a really, really long time, which is part of why I feel like we don't need to do this big to-do.

I mean, we already have all the wedding, the stuff you get from a wedding, we already own.

Like, we got like plates and stuff right because most people are definitely getting married for the plates that's the whole point i mean yeah i think so

and so you know i think that uh question

do you have a slow cooker

no is that on the table

well

at a wedding always do you have a food processor

yes i do it's a really good one too so that's hence my point how long are you guys going to be in kitchener is this a long-term thing or you just don't know i have a three-year sentence.

Okay.

That's a PhD physics dude joke.

I like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Academic joke.

Yep.

All right.

Well, you know, most people feel that the wedding is not for the bride and groom or the spouses to be, but for the family.

Laura, have you talked to your family about your idea, your globe trotting idea?

And what do they think?

I have kind of like mentioned it.

My parents were, my sister just got married last year.

Yeah, I know.

Everyone is talking about Sarah's wedding, how great it was in Hawaii.

It was actually really fun.

But I think that they were kind of like getting their wedding yayas out with that one.

And we had just gotten engaged, so it wasn't really as big a conversation.

I think that my parents definitely educated us to be like

really shrewish and off the beaten path.

So I feel like they would not be surprised by this at all.

In fact, I would argue that they kind of encouraged this.

So I think they'd be okay with it.

But have you specifically discussed your idea with them?

Usually they say, they say, oh, that's fine.

Tell me about it.

Or a yes or no.

Have you specifically discussed getting married with alpacas in Peru with them?

I have discussed getting married

at a destination, but we haven't discussed the alpacas or Peru specifically.

Okay.

And you are what in the birth order?

I am number two.

You're the middle child, all right.

And you have a younger sister?

I do.

And is she married or unmarried?

She's a lot younger.

She's still a university student, so unmarried.

Would you like me to arrange a spouse for her?

The new service I'm offering.

Marriages for people in college.

Any good eggs, send them around.

But no, I think she would be really on board with the Peru llama idea.

Oh, she's a child.

Who cares what she

She'd be into it.

The only thing that matters are your parents.

How old are you guys anyway?

We're 28.

Okay.

You're also children.

Zach, your parents are alive?

They are alive.

Do they

live together?

They live together.

Fantastic.

They are married.

All right.

And have you discussed...

First of all, do they know that you're engaged?

They do.

We told them.

But only after it happened.

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

I have a brother.

All right.

Is he married?

He is not married.

Is he younger or older?

Younger.

You know,

your lawyer counseled you well to only answer the questions you were asked as swiftly as possible.

So you have a younger brother?

I do.

Is it likely that he'll

be married?

No.

All right.

No, eventually, yeah.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

I think in the immediate future.

Sorry.

Why did that elicit a gasp, Lalora?

I'm really curious.

I don't know.

Me and Jeremy are very close.

Me and Zach's brother were really good buds.

And I guess I was just like, Jeremy, it's awesome.

Jeremy could totally get a partner if he so chose.

She wants Jeremy to officiate, actually.

How old is Jeremy?

Jeremy is four years younger.

So he's 24.

Yeah.

No, look, I don't have a PhD in physics, but I can do that math.

Do you think your parents would be hurt if you eloped?

Well, I definitely think.

So

if we were to do the strict definition of eloping, yes.

If we left without them, you know, I think they would be pretty upset if they weren't there.

If they were there and no one else, I'm not sure that they would be as hurt.

Let me ask you this question.

If I were to order you guys to leave on a journey,

That your parents and this is correct me if I'm wrong on this Laura.

I think this is your vision.

Okay.

That you leave on a journey, and it's an announced journey, but you don't tell anyone that in the middle of it will be your nuptials, correct?

That was kind of how I pictured it.

I will.

It would be a surprise?

Maybe, maybe not.

I think that I would want to see how many people actually could come.

And if maybe some super important folks couldn't make it, then I would let them know what was going down.

But I think that, you know, in my vision, I would like to point out to Zach that all the important people are included.

And who are the important people in your vision?

Moms and dads, siblings?

Yeah, moms, dads, siblings.

Do you think Zach's parents could go to,

just as the most extreme example, Peru

to attend your wedding?

Do they have the means to do that?

Yeah.

Zach, do you think that's true?

Yeah, that's true.

Okay.

So what would you be missing out on, Zach, personally, if I were to order this crazy scheme?

Well,

you know, for me, this is about a rite of passage.

It would be doing something that my parents did, that all people seem to do.

I don't really know why, but maybe you have to do it to find out why.

I appreciate the leap of faith that you're taking.

Like, apparently, a lot of people get married.

I don't know why.

I guess I'll find out once I'm married.

Hey, that's how I live my life.

Pretty good.

You didn't set out to be a physics PhD.

You wanted to be a tap dancer.

But apparently, some people people get PhDs in physics, so we'll give it a try.

It was popular.

So, okay, I apologize.

I interrupted you.

Well, you know, for me, it's also sort of a chance to celebrate Laura and, you know, all the things that she's done for me.

You know, I don't think that maybe she wanted to move.

Starting with giving up her vision to be in a Toronto taco stand to marry.

Right.

I'd like to celebrate Laura's sacrifice.

She had a dream for her wedding.

We went on a podcast.

The guy told her no, and so now she's here.

Extra guacamole is free for the next 35 minutes.

Well, also, you know, we have a lot of friends who would want to be parred, and, you know, it's also a chance to go and get your picture taken and look really good in front of all your friends and have them be jealous of your life.

Yeah, that's a nice thing.

I know what a wedding is and what it is for, but the thing that I'm that has taken a turn for me in this particular case is that Laura is proposing a real wedding.

It's just a destination wedding that is

somewhat harder to reach.

It's a harder destination, if it is indeed Peru, for a lot of people, financially and just in terms of travel time.

And it's rather extreme.

But it would be, I mean, Laura, there would still be photographs, correct?

Yeah, yeah.

There would still be a ceremony, right?

Yeah.

The people who cared enough about you to go to Machu Picchu would be there, correct?

Yes.

It would, in fact, be something of a winnowing.

Who are your true friends?

Is that what you want to know?

No, that hadn't really occurred to me,

but it's useful information to have, right?

It's all data collection.

That's the real purpose of Westworld.

Whoops, spoiler.

I mean, actually, I kind of see what Zach's saying.

You know, like his PhD, there's a lot of people that kind of were in his cohort that we got pretty close to.

A couple of them actually are here in Ontario at the same research institute that Zach is at.

And I think that I understand why he wants to celebrate our marriage with them, but I would argue that theoretical physicists are not really party people.

I feel like they'd be just as happy to kind of like come over and like have a nice meal with us than to have this big giant to do.

What is a theoretical physicist party like?

Oh boy.

Theoretical.

You can't see it.

You only know it's there.

By the way, normal party goers avoid it.

Well, I actually kind of like physics parties because me and all the other, you know, physics partners, like we all have this kind of unspoken bond of being kind of like not wanting to be at the party.

And we can all like look at each other across the table and like understand each other in that moment.

There's actually kind of a like, you know, siblinghood there.

Right.

But you, do you resent the idea that Zach is trying to turn your wedding into a class reunion for himself?

It could be a conference, too.

Oh, my God.

No, you know, the thing is, actually, a lot of these folks I have gotten pretty close to, and they're good people.

I think it's just that if it really is about spending time with them, then we should just spend time with them.

That's my position.

When would you propose this journey take place?

Probably next year sometime.

What time of year?

Well, I'm a teacher, so probably it would have to be summer.

Right.

And so, Zach, if I were to rule in your favor, what would I order?

Well, you would have to rule, I think, that she has to have a wedding where we actually invite the the full family, extended family, friends, rent out a big place, and, you know, do the whole dress-up.

The whole dress-up.

The whole shebang.

But that's not what she wants.

I feel like you're under-asking here.

I feel like you could have gotten llamas.

And llamas.

Oh, you're okay with llamas, just not alpacas.

I mean, yeah, alpacas, they bite.

But I'm talking to Zach.

Zach, you're okay with llamas?

I'm okay with llamas, just not alpacas.

Let me go back to the crux before Laura interrupted me with a...

Sorry.

No, I mean, look, I'll take any llama distraction at any time.

It's an easy way to get me off topic.

But what you describe, as far as I can tell, is not what Laura, the woman that you love, whom you want to marry, wants.

That's true.

Now, I don't mean to be sexist about this

because, I mean, you know, it is the tradition that the bride basically determine the size, scope, scale, and location of the wedding, and the dude just kind of goes along along with it.

That's not fair.

I definitely feel that you should have input, but the style of wedding, and correct me if I'm wrong, Laura, you don't want what he describes, right?

I don't.

I want everybody to be happy, and

that will never, ever happen.

You haven't been living in Ontario long enough to have caught that fever.

I don't know.

It's pretty catching.

I don't know.

I feel like I, as long as it's a celebration that everyone that's important to us is happy, I could live with it.

But I feel like

in terms of what would make me personally, what I would enjoy the most, it probably wouldn't be that.

Right.

How does that make you feel, Zach?

Well,

fair enough.

I'll take that as an answer.

Your honor, I don't know if she would really be unhappy.

Could you ask if she's unhappy with that idea of having a big wedding?

Are you unhappy with that idea, Laura?

Can I do my Peru thing later?

Because really, the issue for me is that once you spend that money, like that's the, it's gone, right?

That's the experience.

Where I feel like,

you know, if you spend that money on having like a travel experience or something, it's just kind of

more memories for you.

I don't know if you know this, but there is something of a tradition

of a travel experience following a wedding.

Oh, yeah.

Called a honeymoon.

I think what she's asking for is to skip the wedding entirely and just do a honeymoon.

And I think maybe at the end of the day, maybe in a few years or, you know, 10 years down the line, maybe she'll regret not doing a full wedding.

Zach?

Yes?

You seem to know Laura's feelings so well that even though she says words, saying, I feel this way,

you know in your heart she will feel a different way soon.

Oh, it does.

You know, I love Laura very much, and we've known each other for most of my life, and I feel like we communicate on a level.

I know Laura very much.

Watch yourself, counselor.

Well, okay, I'll say this.

I think that he's right about wanting to skip the wedding and go right to a honeymoon.

I think that for sure sounds super fun.

Laura, have you considered that even if you were to have some sort of ceremony in the midst of your trek?

Let's say it's Peru for the sake of argument and clarity.

Okay.

That that ceremony itself would and the party associated with it, because some people would come, right?

That's part of the vision, isn't it?

That some people would show up?

Yes.

Right.

So if you're traveling

for,

I don't know, an arbitrary amount of days, like five days before the wedding, and then you're going to go off and travel five days after.

There's going to need to be people on site getting things ready before you arrive.

Who would be responsible for that?

I actually was just picturing that we would make an appointment at a,

you know, like civil service office somewhere and that would just kind of all go there together and then we'd all go out to dinner.

That was kind of what I pictured us doing.

To a good Canadian restaurant in Lima, Peru?

I don't know if Peruvians would do poutine.

But there might be one.

I don't know.

Okay, and if I were to order in your favor, you still seem,

you know, your vision is much clearer than Zach's.

But you still seem

a little bit vague on it.

Like, you're not sure that it would be Peru.

Well, I think that I would have to, honestly, I don't know if anyone's told you this, but teachers aren't exactly, you know, big ballin' when it comes comes to money.

And so I'd have to really kind of look at like financing.

And that's why I'm kind of like tenuous on this is, you know, how much is all this going to cost?

And what could we actually logistically do?

But.

So this is all still pre-budgeting.

This is all spitballing.

It's not like you've got a chunk of money that you know you have and you've figured it out.

Well, I have, we have some money that, you know, is saved that we could use.

Sure.

But, you know, we might save for longer depending on what we decide to do, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then drag this conflict out for another couple of years.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

I would like to say to the listenership that both Laura and Zach are adorable.

They did submit evidence that amounts solely to adorable pictures of them.

It is available at the Judge John Hodgman page on maximumfund.org or our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

If you would like to see their adorable faces, though they are both equally adorable, they cannot both be right.

I have enough information to make my verdict.

I will go into my chambers.

I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Zach, I see here a picture of you as a groomsman in

what looks like it's Laura's sister's wedding.

That's correct.

Are you aware that this looks 100%

like a canned iced tea stock photo?

That is exactly why we included it because I'm pretty sure that that's what the photographer planned on doing with it.

Did you give the photographer all stock photo rights for canned beverage-related images?

I actually think it was in the contract.

The email that we got from the photographer was so weird.

It was like all these really gorgeous romantic shots of my sister, and then just like right at the end as a separate attachment was this picture of Zach.

And we're pretty sure it was kind of a joke that they edited it and included it.

But there's like a 90% chance that that's a stock photo somewhere.

Did the photographer make you also take pictures in business attire shaking hands or in a multi-ethnic group high-fiving?

Drinking a Coke.

Got it.

Laura, how do you feel about your chances in this case?

Oh, I have no idea.

I often, when we listen to this podcast together, like bet one way and then I'm totally wrong.

But I feel like I have a good shot.

Zach, how about you?

How do you feel?

Jesse, I came in here totally confident that I would win and I'm feeling right now like I'm going to lose, but that's okay.

Yeah, I mean, that's the whole point of this show is just to take confident white men and crush them like a car compactor.

The judge is wise and

I'm confident that he will take me down a peg.

Also, teachers tend to do pretty well on this show.

That's true.

I think there's a pro-teacher bias.

We'll see what happens when we come back in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the court rubble.

Well, I love teachers and I hate white dudes, so this is the sound of a gavel.

None of those things are true.

I mean, I do love teachers, and I love all dudes.

I love all people.

I'm trying to make everyone happy, and I've just realized that I am just going against my earlier precept, which is a true one, which is not everyone is going to be happy.

That is part of every wedding.

That it is high emotional stakes, a lot of expectations that have been brought to bear on this single day.

If you are being married in the traditional Western tradition, and the expectations from both parties of the people who are getting married, familial expectations.

It does not sound as though you guys are being married within a particular faith,

since no discussions of churches or synagogues or mosques or any other place of worship really factored into your arguing.

But lots of people have expectations that are placed on them by their religious beliefs as well.

And I'm going to say it is an impossible job to make all of the parties fully satisfied.

The trick, I think, of figuring out

what the wedding is going to look like must begin with filtering out all of the competing

desires and expectations of everyone who is not

the two people being married and instead instead the two people being married, being very open and straightforward with each other about what they want and what they like, and trying to find a common ground between those visions if they are distinctly different.

The good news for Laura and Zach is that they are both adorable.

They are in a mature relationship where they obviously care about each other a lot.

They're not rushing into anything, though they clearly have chosen to cohabitate before marriage, which is not the preference of this court, they're doing a good job of it, it sounds like, right?

You guys live together, right?

Yep.

We do.

Yep.

One of you isn't hoarding jelly jars.

The other one isn't

putting cats on leashes or whatever.

Maybe we are, but if so, we're doing it with each other's permission.

You have reserved all of your conflicts to resolve at home, except for this one, the largest perhaps of your life.

It is not something that this court takes lightly, that you have asked me to weigh in on the style of your wedding.

But the good news also is that the style of wedding is not as distant

as you may think.

The elopement that I thought was going to be at the heart of this case, I had presumed was going to be a true elopement, where you guys would go away and come back and tell your families we're married.

and face those consequences of making everyone mad so that you two could be happy.

But rather, what is being proposed by Laura is a rather unconventional

way of having a wedding, one that I've never heard of before, which is like a mid-journey wedding.

And I confess

that I am extremely intrigued by this idea.

I mean, I honestly think

it's a fascinating way of getting married to travel together

both before

and after the ceremony, to travel to a place, to be married, and then continue your travels and eventually go home.

It has a very,

I think, symbolic kind of gravity to it.

And also would be a wonderful way to avoid all of the responsibilities of having to plan a huge party.

Because instead, you'll be traveling through Peru.

You'd be hiking that Inca Trail.

And then you'd get up there to Machu Picchu and meet the most

important people in your life, the people who would journey to see you.

And you would have this incredible moment of communion there in an incredibly dramatic and sacred place that I've never been to.

But my friend Mark Adams,

author of Meet Me and Turn Right at Machu Picchu, did.

And I read his book and it was good.

So there.

I've read that book too.

I also liked it.

Yeah, so you've read it.

It's a great book.

And Mark Adams is an amazing, fun, interesting travel writer.

And his new one, Tip of the Iceberg, My 3,000 Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, is just about to come out on May 15th.

In fact, by the time this comes out, it may already be out.

So please go out and check his book out.

Mark Adams was the first person who ever hired me to write for magazines.

He's an amazing writer and a wonderful guy and very funny dude.

I agree.

Nice man.

Great writer.

Yeah, good.

Thank you very much, Bailiff Jesse.

And then, so then to have this moment at the top of the world and then for you to part ways and then go on your own journey.

I mean, I'm getting goosebumps, Laura.

I got to tell you.

Thanks.

That's an amazing idea that I really want to get behind.

But that thing's going to be expensive.

That's going to be expensive as fudge.

And you know,

I don't like fudge.

I mean, honestly, I don't know how expensive it would be for you guys to do do it because I'm sure there are ways to do it in a budget way.

And I don't know how expensive or possible it would be for your friends and family to actually meet you there.

I don't know.

And the problem is you don't know either.

Like, if you had come to me with a spreadsheet

saying that this vision can happen,

then I would be very inclined.

to simply rule in your favor and say, sorry, Zach, she's got an idea and you don't.

And let's face it, Zach, you don't have an idea.

No, but the Mexican restaurant idea was her idea.

I mean, okay, you should have thrown that in there earlier.

Oops.

Well, within the parameters that I defined, that's what she wanted.

I mean, what's interesting is that she does have a much clearer vision of the style of wedding that she wants than you do,

but your lack of vision

speaks to your flexibility.

Like, maybe in Hawaii, maybe in San Francisco Bay Area, maybe in Toronto or Kitchener, Ontario.

It doesn't matter to me as long as she's happy.

That's my very kind interpretation of what you said.

You also said, she says she wants this, but I know in the future she wishes she did it my way.

Very bad.

I wanted to say.

A very bad thing to say on this podcast.

You got to listen to what people say to you and take them at their word.

I was joking.

Oh, okay.

You should have said that too.

Oops.

You should have said the Mexican restaurant, the Canadian Mexican restaurant was her idea, and I was only joking.

Yes.

I'm really a very nice idea.

I shouldn't say this.

Yeah, no, I can tell you one.

You're wonderful.

I think he sounds like a real heel.

Thank you, Jesse.

You also submitted a video of, what is it, you playing Fetch with Your Cat, Rue?

Yes.

And at the end of this episode, after we do the credits and the Swift Justice, Jesse Thorne will watch that and he will respond to it.

So stick around, everybody.

But now I must decide between these two half visions, these two gauzy, hazy ideas of what the future might hold for you guys.

Is it Laura's half-seen hallucination of a spiritual journey to Machu Picchu that she has not yet budgeted out and doesn't know if she can afford or when it could possibly happen?

Or is it going to be

Zach's

half-baked idea of a traditional catering hall wedding with regular dress-ups and reception line and buffet and band and dancing and everything else in location to be determined where all of his friends from grad school can also come.

The answer is...

Laura.

Sorry, that is the sound of a gavel and Judge John Hodgman rules, but that is not all.

Oh, no.

Here's the deal.

Not everyone can be happy.

And this is going to make some of your family members unhappy, but they would have been unhappy anyway.

And it's also in the mode of the best kind of marital compromise, and indeed any compromise, you both have to suffer a little bit on this one.

I am all about this idea of doing your wedding as a pilgrimage.

It's a beautiful idea.

I love it.

I've never heard of it before.

It's going to be written up in Martha Stewart magazine Some Wedding Edition, and I'm going to be using that as a cultural reference in the future.

I think it's gorgeous.

Probably a lot of other people have done it before, but I'm going to give you the credit.

This is a Laura-style wedding.

Oh, thanks.

But

when you get to that point in the middle where it happens,

Zach's got to be happy with the ceremony.

And that means that you have to give ample time

and certain consideration to make sure that everyone that he wants to invite to this thing, even those dope non-partiers from his grad school days, have a good enough chance to actually attend this thing.

I'm not saying don't do it on Machu Picchu, but you're going to have to be practical about this.

You're going to have to plan well in advance.

You're going to have to investigate whether it can actually be done.

Or you're going to have to pick another location that is equally magical to you, but also is cool for Zach and his friends.

You have to have a real ceremony in the middle of this thing.

You can't just fly by night it.

You're going to have to hire someone or recruit someone to be on the ground and actually plan this thing so that when you two wander in, it's going to be ready to go and it'll be a real wedding or the closest that you can offer to Zach

in the remote location that you choose.

It could be Machu Picchu.

I think that's magical.

I mean, if you can make that work, fantastic.

And obviously, in that case, I would not want that ceremony to do damage to that incredible heritage site.

It has to be done with respect to where you are.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

But you have to accommodate, if I'm going to order Zach to accommodate this getting married in the middle of a trip scheme, you're going to have to do a lot of accommodation for Zach here in terms of who's invited,

making sure that it's affordable for them, making sure that it works for them, giving them every possibility of coming if they want to and can.

You know, he's going to have to have input into music and everything else.

Like that day has to be as much for him as it is for you.

So you're going to have to now take a lot of input from him.

And you're going to have to, I mean, Laura, you're going to have to crunch the numbers.

and be willing to compromise on where you go and when you go in order to make this vision work and be flexible.

If you're going to be inflexible on I'm going to have it in the middle of a journey, you're going to have to be flexible about,

I mean, just flexible with reality as to what you can afford to do and when you can afford to do it, et cetera, et cetera.

So those are all of the caveats that I give you.

The journey is both of yours, and you have to make sure that that is true in the way you plan it.

And the ceremony has to be as much for Zach as for you.

And that means having maybe some corny stuff that you don't want and definitely giving a lot of advance notice as to when this is going to happen so that no one is taken by surprise.

That would be unfair to your family and friends to come back and say, Yeah, we got married and we didn't tell you.

So, it is not an elopement that I am ordering, but a new style of wedding.

Oh, there have to be llamas there, obviously.

A new style of wedding, which I call the Laura and Zach in the middle of the journey wedding, maybe a Fitzcaraldo wedding, where you're dragging a boat across the Andes.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Laura, how are you feeling?

I feel pretty good.

I think that, you know, what the judge said was definitely fair.

I'm not looking forward to this math homework I got to do, though, but I think it's practical.

And he's, I think, right about a lot of stuff.

Zach, how do you feel?

I think he cut the baby in half successfully.

You got to use a cauterizing blade.

That's the secret.

Zach, Laura, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

That's another Judge John Hodgman podcast in the books.

Before we dispense our swift justice, our thanks to Nora McCaffrey Glazer for naming this week's episode Wedding Clashers.

If you'd like to name a future episode, make sure to like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook.

You can follow John and I on Twitter, at Hodgman and at Jesse Thorne.

Hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

I always love to see what people have to say about the latest case.

And you can also chat about the latest case in the MaxFun subreddit at maximumfun.reddit.com.

This week's episode, recorded by Ian Graham at Small Dog Studios in Kitchener, Ontario.

Our producer is the capable Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with quick judgment.

Ashley asks, within a marriage or cohabitation arrangement, what is the statute of limitations on claiming ownership over leftovers from restaurants?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Does this mean, like, let's say, Jesse Thorne, let's imagine a scenario in which you and I are best buddies who share an apartment.

It could have happened in an alternate universe, well into our 30s and 40s.

We share an an apartment somewhere in New England or the San Francisco Bay Area, and we go out to our favorite Canadian taco restaurant, and we each order a burrito, we eat half of it, we each bring home our halves, we let the stump marinate in the refrigerator.

Is the question is, how long do I have to wait until I eat your burrito half?

Yeah, I mean, I think you could also go out to eat by yourself.

You know, once in a while, not to brag, but once in a while at lunchtime, if I'm working from home, I'll go down the hill to La Abeja, which is my wife and my favorite Mexican restaurant, and I will have some,

oh,

you know, there's a variety of things I like to have.

Let's say I'm having enchiladas verdes, de queso,

and I eat half of it.

There's some left over.

I might bring it home, put it in the refrigerator.

At what point is that collective property rather than my personal property?

Never.

It's yours.

Wow.

Yeah.

I mean,

Teresa might want to eat those enchilades verde s con queso or whatever, but she needs to go to you and say, can I eat this?

Absolutely.

No.

If you put that in the fridge, if you order that for yourself and put it in the fridge, it's yours forever.

This may be the only child in me talking, but I'm very surprised that you disagree with that, Jesse.

I.

Now, my opinion is colored by the fact that my wife has never eaten leftovers in her entire life.

It is one of her most interesting qualities.

She's a fresh food girl.

Yeah, she is a grazer.

She is a committed grazer.

So she will eat,

if given, left to her own devices, she would gladly eat cheese and crackers and maybe some snap peas for every meal.

Whereas I tend to hone in immediately on any leftovers that are in the fridge because I'm like, oh, free meal.

Yeah, but is she leaving those leftovers and you know she'll never eat them?

Yes.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's a contract of your marriage.

You know, and you could easily verify year over year, just revisit and go, if you leave something in the fridge, I can eat it, right?

That's fine if that's an understanding.

But absent any clear contract on this subject and prior consent,

you can't eat someone else's food without permission, period.

There is no eminent domain by which Ashley or her partner can go in and just do a land grab of that enchilada.

It's not fair.

It's not cool.

You know, as well as anyone else does.

People who steal food from the refrigerator know what they're doing.

They know that it's wrong.

Just ask first.

Geez.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ HO or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, the sound you're hearing now is Bailiff Jesse Thorne reacting to a video of Zach and Laura's cat Rue,

whom Zach just taught to play fetch.

It's not the fetching, though.

It's that while he's presenting the ball to the cat, the cat's going,

ladies and gentlemen, John Hodgman here again to say, I apologize.

It was Laura who taught Rue to play fetch.

This has been a Judge John Hodgman presentation of Bailiff Jesse Thorne reacting to animals.

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