The Wedding Party

Two years older, and has been telling Ashley what to do for all of them. Will cry during her own toast and has already told us so.

Shared eight hundred square feet and one radiator with Ashley for three winters and they are still speaking, which tells you most of what you need to know.

Met on a chairlift in Japan, stayed friends across two continents. The only person here who has seen both of them fall over in powder.

The cousin who is really a sister. Responsible for at least four of the photographs on the Our Story page.

Talked Sean up to the whole school before Sean ever transferred in, so the first day came with a reputation already waiting. Played goalie while Sean played attack, and celebrated every one of his brother’s goals from the far end of the field.

Spends what he earns on plane tickets, which is how February has meant Japan since 2019. Has met Ashley exactly once, on a work trip back to Madison — he gave Sean the thumbs up, and that was all Sean needed.

He and Sean can riff for an hour without stopping, and have joked about recording it on the theory that it would make a stand-up set. Knows Ashley better than anyone else on this side of the page, and riffs with her too.

Our second date only happened because his wife Helena’s sister put a blanket down on the Capitol lawn hours before either of us could get there. Does not care for dancing, and dances anyway.

Does not simply enjoy comedy, he studies it, and can tell you in technical terms why the joke you just heard worked. At a festival in Gulf Shores the two of them watched two men in their fifties dance through a DJ set — that is the plan.

Came home furious one night about something neither of them can now remember, so Sean suggested boxing gloves. It worked, and everything else they have told each other was said around the fire pit behind the Boyd Street house.

Does not drink, has never smoked, goes to church every Sunday — a clean sheet in a house that had vices to spare. Probably the smartest of them, in a house where all four graduated with a 4.0.

Met Sean by coincidence, touring OU on the same day, and turned up across the hall in the dorms that fall. They lived together for a semester in Arezzo, and spent the rest of college riffing until both of them were doubled over.