I had a really hard time making my side of the guest list as opposed to Mr. Fox who zipped through listing all his 86 invitees. Why was it so hard for me? It's not like it's an exam, but even so, I felt that there were right and wrong answers. I wasn't hung up on the "Oh, you invited me so I have to invite you" thing because, sadly (maybe not sadly), I have only been invited to 2 weddings in the past 10 years (as opposed to Mr. Fox who has been invited to like 6 in the past 6 years). The difficulty came from several sources.
Things like I have a huge family. Like really huge. Like 19 siblings on my mother's side huge. Yeah that huge.
And then there is the sticky mess which is my relationship with my father and his side of the family. The sticky mess which really is not much of a relationship at all. The sticky mess which is a bit awkward when you start to consider who in tarnation will walk you down the aisle. But more about that later.
And there's also the fact that I am terrible, yes completely terrible, at keeping in touch with people (even in the age of Facebook). A fact which is exacerbated by the fact that I have moved around quite a bit.
So it's difficult for me, see. Difficult because I'm not brazen enough to think that these people remember me so fondly, let alone care enough to come to my wedding. I don't really think I'm oh-so-important or that our friendship back then was so Earth-shattering for them. Because, I forgot to mention, the wedding is going to be held in France.
I mean, I'm asking people, who I probably haven't spoken to in however long, to pony up thousands of dollars during a time where people generally do not have thousands of dollars lying around. Additionally, I am asking them to probably get a passport if they didn't have one already and use a week of vacation to come see me. It's a lot. I know.
So it was difficult to make the list. I mean I had the usual handfull of "needs" to be there folks and the "would be nice" to be there folks in the family, but I kept getting lost when it came down to the people under the heading "friends". I added. I subtracted. I discussed with Mr. Fox. His opinion often was, "Whatever you feel is right." (Mostly because he's never met most of my friends.) And I added again. And subtracted again. I can't say I lost sleep over it, but the final product took a lot of effort.
In the end I decided to just try. I made sure that people whom I could say I was close to at one time or another were on that list. These people were the ones I wanted there when things came full circle. When I have completed the rites making us husband and wife in the eyes of God and the law.
We ended up with a list comprised of 150 living, breathing, eating and drinking souls. It changed our budget quite a bit but, in the end, I was happy.
Did you have trouble putting together your guest list? What helped you decide on the difficult ones?
Things like I have a huge family. Like really huge. Like 19 siblings on my mother's side huge. Yeah that huge.
And then there is the sticky mess which is my relationship with my father and his side of the family. The sticky mess which really is not much of a relationship at all. The sticky mess which is a bit awkward when you start to consider who in tarnation will walk you down the aisle. But more about that later.
And there's also the fact that I am terrible, yes completely terrible, at keeping in touch with people (even in the age of Facebook). A fact which is exacerbated by the fact that I have moved around quite a bit.
So it's difficult for me, see. Difficult because I'm not brazen enough to think that these people remember me so fondly, let alone care enough to come to my wedding. I don't really think I'm oh-so-important or that our friendship back then was so Earth-shattering for them. Because, I forgot to mention, the wedding is going to be held in France.
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| France: Home of wine, food, love and culture. Source |
So it was difficult to make the list. I mean I had the usual handfull of "needs" to be there folks and the "would be nice" to be there folks in the family, but I kept getting lost when it came down to the people under the heading "friends". I added. I subtracted. I discussed with Mr. Fox. His opinion often was, "Whatever you feel is right." (Mostly because he's never met most of my friends.) And I added again. And subtracted again. I can't say I lost sleep over it, but the final product took a lot of effort.
Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. ~José Ortega y Gassett
We ended up with a list comprised of 150 living, breathing, eating and drinking souls. It changed our budget quite a bit but, in the end, I was happy.
Did you have trouble putting together your guest list? What helped you decide on the difficult ones?
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