A few weeks ago I had a couple of relatives in town. I happen to like these relatives and I was happy to see them and meet them for lunch. Bare in mind that my mother is of Irish Catholic stock, which means she is one of approximately 157 siblings, 38 of which she had to share a bed with, of which half she can actually remember their names. If you take all of my maternal aunts, uncles, first cousins and their children, we could easily man an air craft carrier. I’ve met probably 40% of these people, committed to memory the names of 20%, and feel familial affection for maybe 5%. A family that large is simply too big for a sane person to try to keep track of. I think the old saying goes “Ireland’s chief export is people.” It’s true.

Anyway, I got together for lunch with these two relatives, an aunt and a cousin, members of the 5% whom I actually have familial affection for, and the subject of family weddings came up. They asked me if I had plans to go to this wedding or that wedding of the litany of approximately 20 weddings that happen to be occurring this wedding season.

“Are you going to Patrick’s wedding?”
”Who is Patrick?”
“Patrick is Mary’s son.”
“Which Mary?”
“Mary Magdoline, the thirteenth Mary, your mother’s 27th oldest sister.
“Mom. Do you know who Mary Magdoline is?”

Mom: “Mary who?”

And around and around we went.

Suffice to say, the answer to all of these questions was “no.”

Then came up the subject of who goes to whose weddings. Apparently, this is VERY political. Such and such will go to this sibling’s children's’ wedding, but not such and such’s because such and such didn’t attend such and such’s children's’ weddings.

“Or, you can abstain from going to any of the weddings, like Adam” my aunt said.

Exactly!!

Truth be told, I cannot stand weddings. ANY weddings. I hate them when they’re big, I hate them when they’re small, I hate them in a church, I hate them in a hall. As far as I can tell, there seems to be two general types of weddings. Old fashioned stuffy ones, wrought with religious symbolism and a party of stiffs that would boor a tree sloth to death; and touchy feely modern ones, where you have to listen syrupy revolting vows written by the bride and the groom about how much they mean to one another. The most shamelessly public of all public displays of affection. Personally, I would rather find a videotape of my parents humping than have to listen to two people read wedding vows to one another.

I will admit that receptions can be a lot of fun, as long as you’ve poured enough whiskey down your gullet to fell a work horse. Waking up naked on the fourteenth hole of a golf course is generally evidence of a good time had by all the night before. So is finding out that you had so much to drink that you tried to stick your tongue down the throat of the bride’s grandmother. Sure, the relatives will talk about you for years; but you were feeling so good as to try to do something like that, how bad a time could it have been? For better or for worse, getting cranked at a wedding reception is no longer an option for me. What is left is me having to talk to people who I don’t know; or worse, talking to people who I lost contact with years ago.

“Yes, yes, I remember you. It’s good to see you. How are you doing? No, no, I don’t remember you, but it’s nice to meet you. How are you doing? Thank you very much for respecting my lifestyle choice, but I’m actually not gay.”

And around and around we go.

It’s not like the bride or the groom actually care if you personally attend their wedding or not. Obviously, they have bigger things on their minds than your own personal attendance. They may actually care about members of the wedding party, but everyone else becomes a faceless body, a meaningless number to reassure them that more than a hundred people care enough about them to go to the trouble and expense of traveling to their wedding.

I’ve recently been invited to a wedding of an old friend. I made mention of it here about a year ago. Said friend now lives in Chicago, and is getting married about an hour away from here in a couple of months. Said friend, if I remember correctly, always hated weddings as much as I did. We suffered through a few of them together. In fact, her upcoming wedding, she assured me, would be the non-wedding wedding. Just a brief blah blah in her parent’s back yard, followed by a bbq. In my last mention of said friend’s wedding, I said for this one wedding, I would make an exception and go. Yet, now that the wedding is approaching, I find myself REALLY not wanting to go for all of the above reasons, not to mention that taking a Saturday off of work will cause me to loose the equivalent of half a week’s wages.

She and I have been bouncing emails back and forth for the past couple of days, with me giving halfhearted excuses as to why I “probably” wouldn’t be able to make it, unwilling to commit to a “definitely” wouldn’t be able to make it because for some reason I felt obligated to attend. I’ve decided that’s just fucking stupid. She knows how much I hate weddings. She's smart enough to know that her wedding wouldn’t be any different for me, and I’m smart enough to know that in the end of the day, she really doesn’t care if I attend or not. There is no need for bullshit excuses here.

Honestly, I’m happy for you. I think it is great that you’ve chosen to get married, but I simply cannot afford to shell out over $500 in the expenses and lost wages... and I don’t really want to go. Where are you registered? I’d like to send you a present.

It’s nothing personal, I just hate weddings... and I’m cheap, but mostly I just hate weddings.