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Old 07-31-2015, 10:52 AM
andthen andthen is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: right side of the coast
Posts: 505
Random wedding vent/rant. I tried to post this before but somehow my message disappeared. Grrr. So lets try this again.
First background: Me and Mr. Andthen got engaged in late April. We decided within a few weeks we’d like to get married in the fall. I told Mr. Andthen that I wanted to do a beach destination in a warm climate. He agreed with this plan because he knows happy wife, happy life. Why so soon, well frankly I hit the big 4-0 in early 2016 and really wanted to say I got married before I turned 40. We settled on a date and let friends and family know that it was happening in the fall. Once we got the venue and date settled I sent out an e-mail to friends and family with save the date and also requested mailing addresses. Now in the process of planning Mr. Andthen and I decided to keep the guest list small and we went into this knowing full well that if we got even 15 of the 50 people we invited it would be a miracle, because of the timing, cost, etc. for friends and family. The other reason for a destination wedding was twofold it was much more cost effective for us. Around where I live its silly expensive to get married and at this stage of my life I wanted something simple with not too much stress. Getting a honeymoon and a wedding all in one is just a bonus.

Now for the rub, I have a friend and a family member ironically with the same name. I’ll call her “Pearl”. First with family member Pearl. She talks up a big game early on she’s like oh I’m coming to your wedding, and will help etc. etc. I warn her that its not going to be in the US. She informs me her passport is expired. So I gently tell her if she wants to attend she should probably start working on getting her passport renewed. Fast forward to late June she calls and tells me she’s trying to see what her class schedule will be for the fall, and see if she can pull a favor with someone to get a buddy pass to fly on. She is going to school PT to finish her bachelor’s at a brick and mortar school, and she works full time at a large company (working business hours). Next yesterday rolls around and she tells me she can’t come because she’s got class on Monday and Friday. My wedding falls on a weekend. Afterwards Mr. Andthen gets home and I give him the news. I tell him that her “excuse” seems suspect to me. I tell him with family Pearl its one thing after the next. If she can’t come because money is tight then say so, I’d be more understanding if you were just honest instead of feeding me some line of stuff. I mean honestly I know I’ve been out of college for a while, but I highly doubt a Friday evening class would have high enough attendance to be offered. I think the part that perhaps threw me over the edge was that she asked if we were going to have a video of the wedding. I said no because it was an $500 on top of what we were already spending on photos. She says, How am I going to see your wedding? I say you’ll see it if you’re there. Honestly, with the wedding video, I’ve never gone back and watched my own vacation videos and for the Mr. and I we just didn’t see it as a good way to spend money. Of my friends who have gotten a wedding video they often only watch it when friends and family are over and there’s a request to see the video. I don’t need a $500 dust collector.

Now for friend Pearl. I do consider her a good friend but she sends back her reply card with a note saying sorry I’m not in a position to attend your happy day. Ok, not quite sure what that means. For her I know money is tight because we’ve had conversations about stuff happening in life and her overall goals and such. But I just don’t understand the notation she made, in a lot of respects I’ve felt her slowly backing out of my life since I met Mr. Andthen, even though I still initiate contact on a somewhat regular basis to check in and keep the connection there. Because she’s said to me multiple times that people from our old church haven’t kept in contact with her and she says with in a way what makes you think she’s somewhat hurt by this. But honestly things work both ways.
For family Pearl, no sense in calling her out, its not going to solve anything and perhaps create a wedge in the relationship. In some ways I’m kind of relieved she’s not coming because she the type of person you kind of have to keep entertained. For friend Pearl that’s the tougher thing, do I approach and see how she’s doing, ask if she feels like the friendship has changed? I don’t know, I do care for her but I’m a bit tired on some level of her making these statements expecting sympathy when in some respects she has control over the situation at hand.

It just seems like on both of our sides we’ve gotten flack about not doing something locally. But honestly it was a trade off. We understood that it was a big ask for people to travel, spend money, and take time off of work, and we knew that not everyone could swing it because we did this so quickly some don’t have the extra funds available on a few months notice and that’s ok. I think I’m just getting frustrated about the flack we’ve gotten from some about our decision. I’m not going to beg you to come to the wedding. If guest can come great, if not that’s ok, but I don’t want to hear people’s thoughts about doing a local thing unless they’re willing to shell out the money.
*ok end of rant.

Last edited by andthen; 07-31-2015 at 10:53 AM. Reason: spacing for paragraphs
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