Monday, August 14, 2006

Three rants and a laugh

Ah weddings. The happiest day of your life. What people fail to tell you is you'll be pulled a million different directions, and learn more about family politics than you ever wanted. And? People will do things to hurt your feelings! And be irrational! And need some rum punchey punchey!

So, you're guessing there's a story there? Funny enough you'd be right. Actually there are so many stories I don't know where to begin.

RANT ONE
We sent the invites out about two months ago. Aren't they pretty? No one was excluded, and before every invite was dropped in the mailbox we checked that it had postage, a return address, and checked people off on our list so no one would get accidentally forgotten in the process of addressing 155 invites. Anal, but purposeful..

We started getting response cards back right away, and were excited when people were coming.

I started to notice, though, that one side of my family we hadn't got replies from almost anyone. We did some digging around to find out why.

It turns out that one of my cousins and her husband didn't receive the invite, despite our careful checking. I know we sent it but somehow it got lost in the mail or something and hadn't arrived.

As soon as I heard my cousin (we'll call her Sue-Bob cause I like that name) didn't get one I called and left a message for her saying "I hear you didn't get an invite by mail, of course you're invited, as you know it's August 26th and we hope you can make it. If you don't get the invite in a couple days, call me at (gave number twice) and I'll send you another one. Hope to hear from you soon."

Sue-Bob never called back. I actually left 3 messages and called 5 times over the course of 2 weeks. They have call display so she knows how many times I actually tried to get in touch with her and never got a response.

Apparently what happened is that she assumed when she didn't receive an invite in the mail (despite knowing about the wedding months beforehand and actually helping to host a shower for me and me saying I was looking forward to seeing her at the wedding in my thank you card) that she didn't get invited.

Instead of saying "hmm this is odd" or "maybe I should call" she assumed she wasn't invited.

Honestly what kind of jerk do people think I am? That I'd intentionally exclude them from my wedding and invite their siblings and cousins but not them? Even after I called to clear things up a few times this was still the assumption.

Finally, my parents actually drove there and hand delivered an invite to her (a 40 minute drive away) to make sure she knew she was invited. They also drove over to smooth things over with her parents after learning they too assumed she wasn't invited (of course without asking my parents what was going on). Apparently she got the invite I initially sent in the mail the next day.

Problem solved, right? She got 2 invites and all would be well.

Apparently not. I still hadn't received a reply card so yesterday I called and left her a message asking her to call me back (again), saying I heard she got the invite finally and we hoped she and her husband could make it and were looking forward to seeing them.

She finally called me back last night to say she had already taken vacation time from work and couldn't get anyone to cover her shift so they wouldn't be coming.

After all that.

Aren't you glad I made the effort? That my parents hand delivered an invite? That I called all those times and got no response only to hear "I'm working." The funny thing it's probably still my fault in most peoples' eyes.

Why on God's Green Earth didn't we elope?

RANT TWO
When people spend money to invite you to their wedding and include a reply card with an envelope with postage on it, it's not a fridge magnet or secret decoder, it's a REPLY card. You use it to reply to the invitation! All you have to do is mark on it your name and whether you're coming (in handy little boxes no less) and then you drop it in a mailbox. Easy! No sweat! I can handle it when they're late but not having the courtesy to mail it back? Not cool. In fact? Really rude. So glad we spent the time to invite you, asshats.

RANT THREE
If you're not coming to your nephew's wedding because of a pigeon race don't have your daughter send a note saying you're too ill to come (she can't come because her mom usually dog sits and can't because her father is too ill). In my view "well enough to go to a pigeon race" to me would be "well enough to go to your nephew's wedding." I'd frankly prefer a nice dinner to being covered in bird feces, but hey! To each their own! In the end just give us the real reason you're not coming. It may make us laugh more when you get bird flu.

LAUGH:
The story is here, but I thought the picture was worth more than any story it told. Apparently this chickie decided to have a John Deere themed wedding. Nope, totally not kidding.



All I can say is Oh Deere! What was that girl thinking? She's ploughing ahead with a wedding and bridesmaids in rubber boots. I'm not sure the gears are working too well in her head. (note I never said the jokes wouldn't be horribly corny, you'll have to plough through them). Ok I'm tire-d. I'll stop now.

The next bridesmaid who says they hate the dress the bride picked out? I'd make her wear the rubber boots and Deere dress.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well. I for one like the dress you picked out for us. I think I look really good in it. I agree that any grieve from bridesmaids will end with them wearing one of those dresses. I'll use that threat next year for my bridesmaids.

I guess with all the family crap - and I do mean crap. The botton line is just cause you're related, it doesn't mean you're family. I've sick of all the asshattery that's been going on.

I had a dream last night that I won the lotto. Invited all of our family down to some swanky hotel in Toronto. Sent limos to pick them up. Served a lovely meal. Then, after dinner, told them that I won the lottery, and that if they had been nicer to my family I'd have considered giving some money. But, seeing as they were a bunch of wankers, they had ten minutes to leave before I (using my best Monty Burns voice) said "Release the hounds"

Anonymous said...

Apparently I can't spell and would now like to correct my typos.

grieve...should have been grief
before I (using my best Monty Bursns voice) said...should have been....before I would "Release the hounds" (using my best Monty Bursns voice)

Anonymous said...

now back to your regular blog programing

Anonymous said...

I've sick...I'm sick...

Oy...apparently all this asshattery has zapped my ability to spell

Chicky Chicky Baby said...

I like your rants. Can you believe I went through that twice? I wanted to elope both times but I was voted down. Ugh. You brought some bad memories. But it was all made better by that picture! Ha!

ElaineMI said...

The old saying, "You can please some of the people some of the time but can't please all of the people all of the time" comes to mind. (There's more to that saying but I can't remember it always.

I wish you and Dave all the best. Have a very happy day, loads of good memories and pictures. Love each other well, forgive and move on. As for anybody that gets their noses out of joint, well, I think some people enjoy being unhappy about whatever.

I heard of a wedding, was up at the K of C council my folks belong to, where the bride wore red, with black lipstick, the bridesmaids wore black, the groomsmen wore black t-shirts (in order to show all their death tattoos) and the hall was decorated with skeletons (WHY they didn't have a Halloween wedding is beyond me...maybe that day wasn't available??). It's all a matter of taste, I guess.

Have a happy wedding!!

Sandra said...

Your rants crack me up.

Ahhh ... wedding politics. It wouldn't be a wedding without them. Such drama. Sheesh

But I have to say ... the John Deere thing and the rubber boots...that's damn funny.

Kristin said...

also? pigeon race? really?

Anonymous said...

Your cousin is ridiculous. Your aunt and uncle too. Get a grip, people.

You are inviting people to a lovely party. YOUR lovely party. They can attend with a smile on their face, or they can go instead to a pigeon race.

Anonymous said...

Oh, people's true colours sure do come out when there's a wedding going on, don't they? Hang in there...I remember thinking my head might just POP OFF right before I got married. I sympathize.

Henly said...

I dunno, the whole RSVP thing annoys me a bit. Sure, if you don't speak to the person regularly then yeah, sending the RSVP makes sense. But when you talk to them all the time, why isn't a mention of "Yeah, I'll be there" sufficient? Especially in the case where you actually have a role in the wedding.

Course, this is coming from a guy whose wedding "invitations" took the form of a mass email. ;)

ms blue said...

Whatever happened to the theme of simple elegance. John Deere!?! LOL. At least they made the news. Those dresses slay me. Yellow and green is always a good combo.

Try to let the antics wash right over you. Every wedding comes with drama. I let other people take care of the politics so that I could enjoy every moment. It was a good thing I was so calm because my FIL shouted out during the decorating of the site, "Who planned this thing? If this isn't changed, I'm not coming." Can you imagine?

Heather said...

Elaine: (holy comments batman) Yay lotto winning and wouldn't that be fun!

Snackiepoo: sans drama sounds like such a great idea!

Mrs. Chicky: you really must love Mr. Chicky to go through this twice!

elaineMI: I've given up pleasing anyone but us and it's been fun.

Sunshine scribe: yeah the Deere wedding cracked me up too.

Kristin: There has to be some sort of contest I can win with that one, no?

mothergoosemouse: ridiculous seemed to be the theme for a while there. Dave wants to send "thanks for not comin and ruining our special day" cards.

mamatulip: Yes they definitely do! So far? Head's on and I've taken a dose of what dave calls "fuckitall."

Henly: I just find it SO much easier when I have it in writing to say "oh yeah, Mr. X wants chicken, and Ms. Y wants mushroom risotto. What bugged me was having to track people down to say "uh are you coming or not?"

something blue: I'm totally getting zen about the whole thing now. I'm totally committed to having fun. I'm sure things will come up to challenge that but I'm definitely going to try to stick with the zen thing.

kittenpie said...

I think the rubber boots are kinda punk and cool, but the dresses? Look like something you'd wear to a Green Bay Packers game - you know, if you were that sort.

yeah, I wrote out reply cards by hand with people's names on them and everything, and still had some people keep them. (including my in-laws, because they wanted to keep it for some reason and figured verbally telling us was fine. What if I wanted them for MY scrapbook, huh? What about THAT?)

Heather said...

Kittenpie: It really bugs me some people never acknowledged getting an invite - makes me wonder why we spent the time assembling it, buying materials, putting it together and addressing it only to have it go completely unacknowledged? Gee thanks, asshats! Thankfully, I don't think I'm the sort. :)