MOSTOV'S MUSINGS

Give the groom’s best friend a microphone and you never quite know what will happen next. After 28 years of weddings, I’ve heard Best Man speeches that brought entire rooms to tears, speeches that nearly brought marriages to an end, and plenty that landed somewhere wonderfully in between. The best ones embarrass the groom, make everyone laugh, celebrate the couple, and reveal exactly why this particular friendship matters.

Oktoberfest season is here, which means the bratwurst is sizzling, the beer steins are filling, and accordions everywhere are preparing for their annual moment in the sun. I’m not really a polka fan, yet the music has followed me my entire life—from carousels and Cleveland to beer halls and wedding dance floors, where a rare polka request can awaken guests I had long since written off as wallflowers. So how did a 19th-century dance from Bohemia become part of Northeast Ohio’s

Every wedding professional has horror stories—but some weddings don’t just go wrong. They go viral. Recently, two Reddit wedding tales exploded online for all the wrong reasons: one featuring parents who tried to hijack an entire reception (and allegedly stole booze after being kicked out), and another starring a bride whose ever-changing demands caused guests and bridesmaids to flee en masse. They’re outrageous, uncomfortable, and borderline unbelievable—and they reveal exac

Every year on January 1, while most of us are focused on champagne, confetti, and questionable resolutions, the Billboard Hot 100 quietly captures something more interesting: the one song which soundtracks the flip of our calendars. Every year has a soundtrack, and the song that tops the chart every year when the calendar flips reveals some interesting truths about who we are, where we've been, and where we want to go. Long before streaming algorithms and playlist culture re

Few songs have lived nine lives in American pop culture quite like “Shout.” From its soulful 1959 Cincinnati birth to its Animal House revival and its eternal role as a wedding-reception floor-filler, this entry explores the wild history of The Isley Brothers’ greatest party anthem — plus the surprisingly tricky science behind the “a little bit softer now” squat that stumps half my dance floors every Saturday night. The moment John Belushi and Animal House introduced a new g