That was a piece of wisdom handed down to my best friend, Eric, this weekend by his brother and best man, Ben.

Before I learned that I would not have to deliver a speech at the wedding for Eric and his new wife, Kristin, I had been searching my brain for similar wisdom that I could impart as a result of my four-plus years of wedded bliss.

For example, a wife serves as a great excuse when there's something you don't want to do. Say your rugby team wants to spend an evening drinking heavily: What fun! We'll waste hundreds of dollars and be incapacitated for days. Hooray!

I'm able to get out of it with: "Gosh, guys, as much as I really want to do that, I promised my wife that I would ... uhm ... knit her a sweater."

As it turns out, though, I am pretty sure Eric and Kristin were not in wont of a whole lot of advice from me. It is pretty obvious that they knew what they were doing, based on how well they were able to milk the wedding process for all it's worth.

From July on, almost every week saw them hosting some sort event that served as yet another opportunity to give them gifts: showers, barbecues, get-togethers, etc.

That's four full months of raking in wedding gifts. It took less time to set up a provisional government in Iraq than it did for Eric and Kristin to finally get married. Indeed, I think if the two of them had held out any longer, the United Nations would have tried to intervene. France would have threatened to withhold champagne until they could send in little blue-helmet-wearing pastors to oversee the wedding ceremony.

And for friends of Eric, the process felt even longer for fear that Kristin would come to her senses and back out.

That's the way it is for almost every wedding, I suppose. With the exception of the groom's mother, I think the entire wedding party usually finds itself thinking: "What is wrong with that poor girl?"

Especially so for Eric, though. He is the anti-sexy.

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I have known Eric for more than 15 years, but you would only need to know him for 15 minutes before you realized that the boy has a serious eating problem. I don't mean that he has an eating disorder, like anorexia. I mean he has a serious problem getting the food in his mouth, rather than on his face, his clothing and anything within a 10-foot radius.

When my wife and I still lived in San Diego, Eric and Kristin came out to visit, and a whole group of us went out to dinner at one point. Amid all the fun we were having, we somehow failed to prevent Eric from ordering barbecue ribs.

Bull-riding takes longer than it took Eric to completely cover himself in barbecue sauce. Half-eaten rib bones hung from his face. Food particles sailed through the air as he spoke.

I looked at my sparkling new white shirt and thought: "I'm going to have to kill Eric."

Then I happened to glance at Kristin. Rather than taking cover like a front-row participant at Gallagher concert, she was just sitting there calmly eating her meal.

"What is wrong with that poor girl?" I thought to myself.

Nothing is wrong with her, of course. She is an extraordinary woman who has the ability to see love beyond the barbecue stains. She can look past the pork chop hanging from Eric's cheek and see what a genuinely cool guy he really is.

The fact is, for all of his mess and stench, it's hard not to like Eric. When extremists shout, "Death to America," they aren't talking about Eric.

That Eric has found a woman who can really see his greatness and not try to change his less-desirable aspects had most of us who know him pushing him to marry Kristin before she had time to change her mind.

Thankfully, Kristin didn't change her mind. And for Eric's sake, I hope that she never does.

Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.