Sunday, February 17, 2013

Five Months to "I Do!" and So Busy I Missed A Month, Too

You are cordially invited...
 
I've been so busy with work and wedding planning that I completely forgot to post a Six Months to "I Do!" blog last month.  I've accomplished tons in the last two months, but it's left me with very little down time.  Any night where I'm not working on grading papers or planning some part of the wedding, I grab my fiance for some quality time or a date night.  Blogging just hasn't been very high on my to-do list.  I'm sorry, dear readers.

Here are some highlights from the last two months that are worth mentioning:
  • I ordered the wedding invitations.  (see above)
  • We got the groom and groomsmen apparel decided and ordered for the big day.
  • I ordered wedding favors for the guests.
  • We took a roadtrip to watch an outdoor hockey game. (More on that in a later blog.)
  • A co-worker I don't enjoy tried to invite herself to my wedding.
  • We toured local restaurant with my in-laws to find a rehearsal dinner site.
  • A small family feud may have developed between me and my sister-in-law.

I've heard that planning a wedding can be a fairly stressful time in your life, but this is just freaking ridiculous.  I'm so done with other people's drama and crap (Yes, I said crap!) that I just can't stand it anymore.  It seems to be coming in from all sides now and I am completely done playing nice.

The last time I wrote to you, my dear supportive readers, I mentioned that I was having some issues with a wild card bridesmaid and some sibling rivalry.  Thankfully, my wonderful maid of honor took care of the wild card for me.  Muzzled her would be a more accurate description, but as it was done on my behalf I throw no flags on the play.  With that handled, you'd think life would be getting easier right?  Less dramatic, maybe?  Not so much.

The co-worker inviting herself to the wedding was almost funny.  My teammate, that IS invited to the wedding, mentioned in passing one day that he might have a conflicting event that would prevent him from coming to the wedding.  Unfortunately, an uninvited co-worker was in the room at the time and began asking questions about the wedding.  When was it going to be?  Where was it going to be?  When was I sending out invitations?  Clearly, she thought her invitation was coming soon.  I told the friend that was invited that it would be okay if he couldn't attend because the guest list was out of control high and that would be two less wedding favors I'd have to make.  That's when the eavesdropper, who had hovered in the room to hear more details, piped in that she would take his place.  I insisted that the guest list simply wouldn't hold anymore people and that I was praying that forty plus people who were invited would also be unable to attend.  The interloper then informed me that she'd just come for the wedding and skip the reception because "anybody can come to the wedding ceremony.  Nobody will be counting heads there."  So, now I may have to have a ticket taker and bouncers at my ceremony to keep this unwanted guest out of my big day.  Maybe, if we don't mention the wedding anytime in the next five months, she'll forget all the details?!

The issue with Squirt's parents flared up again.  As of my last wedding post, we had come to a detente where by I would either A) suck up my pride and ask my sister in law for permission to have Squirt in my wedding the next time I saw them or B) let the subject drop, never to be spoken of again.  I was going to take option B, as asking the waffler for permission to include Squirt was more than I thought I could stomach.  My mother had other ideas, though.



Eventually, we were all in the same place at the same time.  I swallowed my pride and asked for permission to use Squirt in my wedding (under pressure from my mother, of course).  My sister-in-law behaved like the insane lunatic that she truly is and left the room without answering my question.  She hid in the bathroom and started texting my brother who was sitting  (very embarrassed by her childish behavior) in the living room.  I waited ten minutes.  She never came out and I received no answer to my question that day.  This is the bat shit craziness that my mother and I are forced to endure when dealing with my brother's wife.  A day later, in the middle of the Super Bowl no less, I received a long, rambling text about all the things I had done to "piss her off" in the last five months and then a firm "no" to my nephew being in the wedding.  Needless to say, I'm very tempted to revoke her invitation to the wedding and counsel my brother to divorce this bitch. 
 
So, the drama just keeps on coming with no end in sight.  My once happy family is in a total state of upheaval with my mom budgeting her time out between them and us so that we don't have to be in a room together anytime soon.  The part that I really hate, though, is that my sister-in-law has made it a public acrimony by discussing the issue with her friend circle.  Friendamily events attended by that friend circle have become awkward affairs with sides clearly being taken.  Needless to say, my friends support me and antagonize her, while her friends are giving me the silent treatment in support of her. Ugh!  All I wanted was to get married to the man I love.  Why did it have to turn into this drama-filled nightmare?

Lucky for me the in-laws have been delightful during this same stressful time with my family.  My future father-in-law decided to take an active role in choosing the location for our rehearsal dinner this month.  When my fiance and I brought the topic up, we mentioned a few local restaurants that have small to midsized party rooms and reasonable menu prices.  Papa Bear was having none of that.  He informed us that he was not going to be paying for any low rent affair and promptly started naming some very nice, but more pricey restaurant options.  I told him wherever he picked would be fine.  The rehearsal dinner is one of the few things I am not responsible for planning and I was perfectly happy to leave it up to the in-laws. 
 
Papa Bear insisted that we would need to go dine at a few of these nice restaurants to determine which would suit our needs best.  So, we started a restaurant tour.  Every Tuesday for a month, Papa Bear treated us to a nice dinner out with my fiance's parents.  Half of the restaurants he picked didn't even have event rooms, but coincidentally we ate at Mama Bear's favorite restaurant the day before her birthday and we tried out the new seafood restaurant that I'd been trying to convince my honey to check out.  In the end, Papa Bear picked the first restaurant we visited.  But, through the restaurant tour, we got to spend a lot of drama-free quality time with my honey's family, which was wonderful.
 

 
I'm really starting to enjoy my in-laws and they seem to genuinely like spending time with me.  Maybe there is a silver lining to the drama cloud after all, if avoiding my own family brought me closer to my future in-laws.



3 comments:

  1. There is another event you don't have to plan...and it has been scheduled.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The less I know about the bachelor party, the happier I'll be.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'd just like to know the day so I can keep Lainey busy, msg me on fb.

    ReplyDelete