It's been a while since I felt like I was back in the blues bars, playing three sets in a smoke-filled poolroom for a bunch of drunk people that ignore the band other than to yell "Free Bird" every 15 minutes or so.  For one thing, very few weddings have pool tables, although it would be awesome if they did.  Weddings do have managers, called Function Coordinators, that have an awful lot in common with the guys in the clubs that yell at the band for:  being too loud, not bringing enough people, not bringing enough people that drink, not being danceable, being too danceable because now nobody is drinking, and sucking. 

Never once in a club was I in a shouting match because the ice cream was melting, though.  We had finished the Mother/Son Father/Daughter dances and were rocking the joint at the correct volume with a dance floor full of happy people who were drinking up a storm.  Over marches the FC to get in H's face (while she's singing, btw) looking like a cross between Henny Youngman and a volcano.  He had been on our case all night, evidently enraged that we were trying to entertain people when he had chicken footballs to serve.  I intercepted him, which I usually do when any moron tries to talk to whomever is singing at the time.  He screams, "THIRD TIME!  This is the third god!@#$ time I'm telling you!"  I went into reasonable mode: "Is there a problem?" No getting anything past me.  He's still erupting, "The ice cream is melting and this is the THIRD TIME I'm telling you to announce it's out!  I've had it with you f@#'g people!"  Me, a little less charitable:  "Listen, you didn't speak to me before.  Let me know what you want said and I'll take care of it."  FC, with spittle flying, yells "I'm ready to pull the plug on you @#!holes RIGHT NOW!"  I'm thinking, I played the Hangout in Mooseup, CT with a biker manager that would threaten us with bodily harm for ending sets early, and YOU'RE trying to intimidate me?  So now I'm yelling back, "Really?  GO AHEAD AND PULL THE PLUG!  The dance floor is packed and the bride and groom are right in the middle of it.  Pull the plug and then go explain to the bride's parents how their daughter having a good time was less important than the ICE CREAM!"  C stepped in at this point, because evidently I was starting to get a little too Sonny Corleone.   So FC leaves, we finish the song, and C announces:  "OK, everybody, just want you to know that ice cream and coffee are available in the back of the room.  But you don't want to leave the party, DO YOU?"  The crowd cheers.  I'm so proud.  We're NEVER working at this place again.

So we finish the newlywed's "official" last dance, and there's time for one more song.  And the whole wedding party is yelling, "Free Bird!"  We played it too.