Transforming Seminarian has a nice post up on Less-Than-Perfect Weddings. If you have a wedding or other large event coming up, I'd recommend reading it - regardless of whether you'll be a participant or just a spectator. At least, I found myself nodding along and thinking, Exactly, at several points in there.
When the Beautiful Wife and I decided to get married, we were pretty clear on several things. Chief among them was the fact that the wedding is not the marriage; it's just a formal announcement to the community. So it really didn't need to be a big, fancy event, and it really didn't need to be stressful. (We did, however, decide to write our own vows - if I can find those, I may post them later.)
So we sat down and worked out who all we wanted to invite. And it was a pretty short list: My parents, the Beautiful Woman's parents, my brother and his girlfriend, the Beautiful Woman's sister and her boyfriend. Add the minister (a friend of the Beautiful Woman's mother) and her husband, plus the two of us, and you get a total of twelve people.
Oh, and the Beautiful Woman wanted to include one of her aunts. The aunt in question had been friendly and supportive and had done some really nice things for us, so this was understandable. Of course, if we were going to invite her, we'd need to invite her husband... and her kids... and, well, probably the other aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides of the family... and the remaining grandparents...
A few weeks later we sent out one hundred and fifty-someodd invitations. Our twelve-person wedding was actually attended by about ninety people. And all this because of one aunt that we just couldn't leave out.
I'm not complaining. The wedding was fine, and we were just as married afterwards as we would have been with a small ceremony. But it's an almost perfect real-world example of the Butterfly Effect, and it never fails to amuse me.
There were some funny moments at the reception, also, but I'll tell those stories later (when I have more time).
We originally hoped for fifty at our weeding, but had to expand it to 85.
ReplyDeleteThe Tour Guide and I are probably going to elope. Then again, it's not a first wedding for either of us.
ReplyDeleteIf we were to get married locally it'd be a small garden ceremony. Probably of around twelve to fifteen people that would somehow turn into a hundred which makes me inclined to elope even more. :)
@ Andy - Okay, I know it was a typo, but the idea of an eighty-five person weeding made me chuckle. I bet after that you'd have a weed-free garden... and lawn... and house... and maybe neighborhood, too.
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah, I think almost everybody ends up inviting more people than they'd originally intended. Unless they elope.
@ D'MA - Do it! Run away to get married! Or, you know, make it a destination wedding in some place like Greenland - amounts to the same thing, really.
(Nothing against Greenland, of course. Apologies to any Greenlandians who happen to read this.)
Thanks for the kind words! I like the Butterfly Effect analogy.
ReplyDeleteThinking about my own (hypothetical) wedding, I'd have to have at least 90 guests - just from my side of the guest list. I'd actually LIKE to have a rather small, intimate wedding... but I have too many people who warrant an invitation.
ReplyDelete