Current Mood:  stressed
Here’s some wedding news and issues. It’s long and mostly me venting over my family’s ignorance. It may have some random points mixed in so sorry for any confusion.
We got the date and time set (June 24 at noon) and booked at St. George with the new priest. Unfortunately, that's all that is done so far. I wanted to get major wedding decisions out of the way now so that I'm not struggling with classes. And I graduate in May so I really want to make sure I’ve got my focus on school.
My mom has been questioning/fighting me on all my decisions/ideas/whatever. Bridesmaids’ dresses and their colors, the wedding party, reception halls, etc. She already convinced us to move the wedding up 7 months by promising me I won’t be stressing over wedding stuff while trying to finish school. She actually wanted us to get married in March or April WHILE I'M IN SCHOOL. Uh, no.
Derrick and I wanted his brother and sister and my two brothers and one of my sisters (the other isn’t even invited…long story) to be in the wedding party. But when I had told my mom and sister about it, they told me to rethink having one of my brothers in the wedding party. He’s had and still has some problems to work through, but he’s come a long way. For a long time, he didn’t take any care of himself at all, and now, years later, you can see the results. Well, my mom and sis reminded me of all that and they said he just doesn’t look good (not in the sense that he’s not good-looking, but rather the fact that he didn’t take care of himself before and the results are not “appealing”…so to speak.). And they said that he would understand because he knows that he looks bad and that people don’t like being around him. They also said that he’s not very reliable and he may decide at the last minute that he doesn’t want to go to the wedding. And even if he does decide to go, he’d prolly just leave after the ceremony. They “proved” their point with some examples:
-> He was supposed to go help them clean up at their camp, but he decided not to.
-> Float rules for the parade that my parents are in each year states that there is to be at least one person riding in the cab with the driver of the float. My brother was supposed to ride in the cab with the driver (my dad), but a few days before the parade he called and said he didn’t want to do it.
Remember, these are just two of many examples where he decided not to do something that was preplanned.
Does anyone see anything ridiculous about their “reasoning”? If not, here’s something: Those events were cleaning up a dirty camp and riding in a hot car for a few hours. There’s no way you can compare that to HIS LITTLE SISTER’S WEDDING!!! Derrick said that same thing when I told him their “examples”. Derrick said that he knows my brother adores me because my brother is always telling stories about when I was little and about all the movies he’d take me to and stuff and he wouldn’t just bail on me like that. Anyway, my mom said that my dad told her that he refuses to let my brother be in the wedding party because he wouldn’t look good up there. Holy crap people! What kind of family am I in??? My mom has a tendency to “exaggerate” (lie) to get her point across or to get her way. I’m sure my dad may have an issue regarding my brother, but I honestly doubt he would “refuse” him being part of the wedding. My mom said she would talk to my dad to see if he’ll bend on his refusal.
UGGGHHH! OK…enough of that. Next issue.
The main thing we’re all trying to settle right now is booking a reception hall. I wanted to go with Oak Lodge, even though it's $3000 more than our other options (Stage One and Drusilla Seafood Restaurant). But there was a conflict with my parents thinking it is too small and everyone would be shoulder-to-shoulder and no one would have fun. Also my parents said the room for the food was too small, even though the line of people would flow just fine, and that there will be so many people who will stand in the room eating off their plate so that they can just grab more food when they want some (because apparently people do that at ALL weddings), therefore blocking anyone else from getting to the food. WTF?! They also say that the tables are so close together and people tend to mingle standing up around the tables, so if someone sitting at a table wanted to go get more food or a drink or something and other people were mingling in their path, then the first someone wouldn’t be able to get out. HELLO…what about saying “Excuse me. Can you please take one step to your left so that I can get out?” But no…according to my parents, it would aggravate the people mingling and interrupt their conversation. People blocking others in the food room and at the tables and not giving a crap about anyone else who wants to get by? I'm sorry, but I've never been to a wedding where people were that rude.
But while attending the wedding of an old friend from high school this past weekend, I realized it would be nice to invite my high school friends and others I haven’t seen in a while and not originally on my list, so I decided to go with Stage One because they have lots more room than Oak Lodge and are less strict than Drusilla. It’s about $300 or so more than Drusilla, but $3000 cheaper than Oak Lodge. So Derrick called the priest to change the wedding time to noon (it was originally set at 1pm, but Stage One had another reception booked that night so we had to move ours up an hour). When me, Derrick, my parents, and my sister all sat down last week to talk about the pros and cons of the three reception places, we shared our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices. My mom’s 1st choice was Stage One. So I figured my mom would be happy to hear that I decided to go with Stage One. I call her up and tell her so that she could go put down the deposit, and this is what I get: “Well, I think we should keep looking at Drusilla because after our three hours are up and yall leave, we can take all the leftover food to our house and keep on partying. Stage One doesn’t let you keep the food after the reception.” Again…WTF?!
Derrick came by my work yesterday and I told him about what my mom had said. When I got home from work, he said that after I told him all that, he was about to just call my parents up and tell them (or my mom rather) to stop fighting me on everything and at least say OK to something, anything. He said that we need to have a talk with them, and I totally agree with him. But I’m just not looking forward to having the words “well we’re paying for it” said over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Stress-free wedding my ass. |
I think you should be able to have any one you want in your wedding. Key words: Your Wedding. If they're completely convinced that your brother would back out like that, then the best thing to do is have a back-up in your mind just in case.
Stage One is a very nice place, we had a couple of dances there in high school. Even though I haven't seen the other two places, Stage One would be a good choice. And about Drusilla letting you take food home, hun, all we're going to care about is alcohol by that point, haha.
I told Derrick, and I'll tell you, you HAVE to talk to your parents. Sit down with them, and just tell them that you know they're paying for the wedding, and you respect their opinions but it's YOUR wedding, not theirs. Just tell them that you're not them, you like different things than them. Say "would you rather me be miserable and you be happy, or would you rather ME be happy on MY wedding day?". It's not unreasonable at all.
Anyway, good luck this week with school, blah, we'll have to get together soon.