Over the weekend, a friend of mine got married in Las Vegas. I found out through the internet, which is sort of funny, because when my best friend* since age 8 got married, I found out when she sent me a set of pictures from the ceremony which took place that morning.**
My first friend to get married (at age 22, right out of college, and someone I’m not close to at all any more) also got married in Vegas. Anyone who wanted to go could go, but really only her family coughed up for the plane ticket. I think we had like a week’s notice.
One of my good friends from college got married and at the time she and I were on the outs (a fact I sorely regret). The irony is she’s not that close to any of her bridesmaids anymore anyway. Another friend from college got married on our college campus and I couldn’t afford the trip at the time. We weren’t that close, and I went in on a gift.
I can count on one hand the number of weddings I’ve actually attended, only 1 of which was family (I’m an only child and it seems like the cousins are tending toward marrying late), and I’ve never, EVER been IN a wedding. The closest I came was being the date of an usher at the wedding of two people I’d never met in my life.
I don’t really have a point here except that it’s funny that my wedding involvement has been so distant and non traditional. It’s saved me a ton of money and hassle, but it still feels odd that at 33, I’ve never actually been in a wedding. Admittedly a small part of me worries that people don’t like me as much as I like to think they do, but in reality most of my inner circle is still unwed. I think I’m more struck by how weddings happen and people get married and how the news travels nowadays.
If there’s no real “wedding” in the sense of the fuss and the ceremony and the guests, are you still expected to send a gift?
What if there’s a 50% chance you wouldn’t have even known about the wedding if you didn’t have access to the internet?
*Relative term now since I only talk to her maybe twice a year, but for a long time we were very, very close.
**Because they got married in Egypt, where she was teaching, and due to the extensive papework involving an American citizen marrying a fellow with British citizenship in another country, they didn’t want to announce it until they were 100% sure they could even GET married that day. Also, the pictures were only of the bride, groom, and token male witness that Egyptian culture requires.
Posted by wafelenbak 