Congrats to the previously profiled Emily and Sean Br. and their daughter Amanda. Last week Emily gave birth to their second daughter, Lindsay. Everyone’s doing great (except Sean, but he’s never been great).

In the next few months we’re profiling all of our wedding guests. Check back to see what we write about you.

I met Sean Br.in high school. Despite him being good friends with Sal too, they are as different as, say, the Italians and the rest of humanity.

If Sal pays his friends not to hang out with them, Sean is the one of us taking the money, already thinking about what he’s going to buy at Lil Peach (Chris, of course, would be the one telling Sal to cough up more cash, calling him a nasty name, and then denying that Sal gave him anything at all).

And Sal, if you remember, is known as “Nice Salvi.” No parent in Reading has bestowed such a title upon Sean. In fact, Sal’s dad banned Sean from their house for a couple of months because of Sean’s late-night shenanigans. And my mom greets Sean with his full name.

Furthermore it’s not just parents who have misgivings about Sean; siblings have them too. During the year that Gerrit and I were in high school together, Gerrit ranked my friends. Sean come in last. It wasn’t close.

Sean, however, does have redeeming features. Most notably he is the creator of Bru’s Brew, a potent punch that we enjoyed while partying at our parents’ houses while home on college breaks. It has one ingredient: whatever is available.

In 1999 my mother made a rum cake for Christmas dinner. Unbeknownst to her, the bottle of rum had been all water for four years (meaning my parents’ guests must have thought Old Man Everson watered down his liquor). Sean had used the rum for Bru’s Brew when I entertained one night while my parents were in absentia.

Needless to say, Sean is a blast to hang out with. As uptight as I was in high school, I can’t fathom how much worse I would’ve been without knowing him.

Emily is the respectable half of this couple. She and I (along with the yet-to-be profiled Dan S.) went to nursery school together back in the day. Sean and Emily married in 2002 and have one lovely, loquacious daughter who clearly inherited her intelligence from her mother.

Anyway, if you are talking to Sean and Emily and the conversation starts to drag, ask Sean if he learned his lesson. Or ask Emily about their wedding pictures that I’m forbidden from posting here.

*scheduled to attend

In the next few months we’re profiling all of our wedding guests. Check back to see what we write about you.

Hearing the mothers in Reading, MA, you’d think Salvi’s first name was “nice,” as in “How’s that Nice Salvi?” Such sentiments were a stark difference from those about my two other friends from high school who’ll be at our wedding, the yet-to-be profiled Sean Br. and Chris.

But Sal is nice. We were going camping one night during a summer in college. Sal didn’t want to go, but he was too kind to share his feelings ahead of time. So we showed up at Sal’s house we tried to coax him into having fun with us. We weren’t making progress, so we started playing soccer in his driveway in an attempt to filibuster him into joining us, and Chris kicked mud all over Sal’s garage door.

Just then Sal’s dad came home, saw mud all over the side of his house, and started yelling in Italian at Sal. We decided it was time to leave. But, even though Sal was catching hell for something Chris did—and Sal didn’t want to hang out with us in the first place—he still ran after our car to give us money for whatever increase in expenses we were going to incur because of his absence.

In addition to being paid off not to hang out with him, Sal’s worth knowing because his mother makes the best Italian food I’ve ever had. While Sal is generous with his money, he’s less so with his mom’s cooking. We knew she was an excellent cook, but Sal had never asked us over for a meal. So, via invitations dropped off in our lockers, Chris requested the pleasure of our company—at Sal’s house—for The Feast. Word got to Sal’s mom that we’d been invited over to their house for dinner. She apparently didn’t care that the invite came from her son’s friend and not her son and prepared one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

Sometimes Chris, Sean, and I get the feeling that Sal wishes he had found higher-quality friends in high school. And, because we like that Nice Salvi, we wish he had had better luck back then too. But we’re also glad that he’s stuck with us.

While Sal could have done better with his friends, the same can’t be said abut his wife, Pam. You know she’s got to be special—she’s not 100 percent Italian, but Sal still married her. They just had a son, Nicholas, whose bountiful locks are the envy of 31-year-olds named Zach everywhere.

We’re hoping Pam and Sal can make it to our wedding, but we understand that Sal’s most comfortable in suburban Boston and suburban Naples, Italy.

Anyway, if you’re talking to Sal and the conversation hits a lull, compliment him on his white-on-white suit or ask him what it was like to dress up as McGruff the Crime Dog. Or ask Pam if Sal ever confided in her why he hates his high school friends.

*scheduled to attend