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.