Weddings: Number One Source of Woe

Every wedding I've been to, participated in, or heard tell of in the last two years has been a colossal pain in everyone's bum.

Why is it that everyone gets so riled up, takes out their anger for everything that ever went wrong in their own lives, and chooses this blessed event as the very time to assert their own agendas?

Weddings are a social landmine. Everyone feels that the role you give them or don't give them in your ceremony is the ultimate statement of how you feel about them forever and ever amen. Then people start to feel that they are the point of the day. The Bride and Groom? Well, they are bit players in this whole thing. Their preferences? Well, why should what they want matter more than say, what random third cousin to the left thinks is a good idea?

It is enough to make me cuss.

And I am part of the problem. I found myself confused and put out when Victoria told me she put me at a table with people I attended church with 5 years ago. Not at the same table with Gordon. It just felt like a lack of forethought. I felt like I'd been boxed up and relegated to the back of her mind, where I know most of those people (from our old church) reside.

I suddenly had the supreme challenge of keeping quiet and remembering that this is not about me. That I can blow that popsicle stand as soon as it becomes unbearable. Whatever. That my wedding will be my opportunity to have things the way I want them. To remember, with compassion, that these choices are not malicious. I am sure she did the best she could with what she had available to her.

I can handle it better if I affect some kind of detachment from my expectations. Aren't they always the culprit for every one's sorrow?