There are plenty of ways to leave someone at the altar, but it’s hard to beat email for efficiency – or tackiness.

Basketball player Richard Jefferson of the San Antonio Spurs recently did the deed electronically with fiance Kesha Ni’Cole Nichols because, he explains:

Sometimes you might write an e-mail to get your thoughts down right.

Jefferson apparently sent the fateful email 6 days before the wedding, which was to take place at the New York Mandarin Oriental. According to the New York Daily News:

Nichols, 29, immediately called her family and friends to alert them of the ill-timed news, [but] the basketball pro waited much longer.

“He called about two hours before the wedding. It was nuts,” said one Jefferson pal.

Although Jefferson never showed up to the hotel, he made sure to give his best friend his Black Amex credit card, with which the guests made good use of during the night.

A jilted Nichols, who was “not entirely caught off-guard,” checked into the hotel and was upgraded to a suite on the 45th floor overlooking Central Park on what would have been her wedding night, according to a source at the hotel.

Now that last part”s just sad.

Jefferson disputed reports that the wedding cost $2,000,000, saying it was in fact less than $500,000. And in fairness, Jefferson says that after canceling the wedding he also paid Nichols a “six-figure” settlement. Jefferson explains that Nichols is his “best friend” and that:

I’m not trying to buy her off. She has a lump sum to help her move on.

Though Jefferson has gotten plenty of grief from folks who don’t seem to  appreciate this act of generosity, he does have a big fan in Howard Stern.  In an interview with Jefferson, Stern declared:

People should say you are a hero. And I’m not making a joke. This is what we should admire in our society, that he is taking marriage seriously and he’s saying, ‘Listen I’ve got real doubts here.’ . . . This is what men should do. This is what women should do. Be honest with the other person.

Honesty perhaps. Good timing not so much.

In some ways, I actually agree with Stern. Not that Jefferson’s a hero, but that people should talk about their doubts more before getting married, be more honest with each other about these doubts.

It’s never easy, of course. But if your relationship can’t handle this kind of blunt discussion, you probably shouldn’t be getting married anyway.

Thinking about the unthinkable? You’ll find

• a man’s perspective here and here,
• a woman’s perspective here,
• a “happy … unconventional … wedding story” written by a woman who broke her engagement,
• and some practical gender-neutral advice on cancellation etiquette here.