Do I offend?
I don't know why this bothers me, but it does. A bunch of my KC friends who were all "Road trip! Your wedding's gonna be awesome!" six months ago are bailing on coming now that it's a few weeks away. A good 60% of them haven't even RSVP'd, preferring instead to awkwardly avoid me at an art event many of us converged at recently. WTF??
Various relatives on both of our sides can't be arsed to come to Pittsburgh or even write a little note on the reply card. Four attendees retracted their RSVPs today, due to unforseen circumstances. And then there are the multitudes of declines (seriously, scads of them) we got from folks who were timely and polite and lovely, and had very very good reasons that they couldn't attend, and were really sorry to be missing everything. Which is much much nicer than the "couldn't give a shit, sorry," people, but still means more empty seats.
Anyway. I'm having some complex emotions over this...I am sort of ashamed of myself for even caring, and I am reminded that there are a lot of wonderful, awesome people who are going to be there for us. But when more than 50% of your guest list declines, it's hard not to feel a little rejected.
When I was in elementary school, my mom tried to put together a birthday party for me. I didn't have a ton of friends as a kid --- to be honest, I didn't really have anyone I was super close to, outside of my family. But there were a few girls who were sometimes friendly with me at school or at Girl Scouts or during after-school projects, so I made up a list of ten invitees. It was the most people I'd ever invited over to my house for anything, and I was pretty excited.
Anyway, the week before the party, four of the girls' moms called to say their kids wouldn't be able to attend, so sorry, they were going to be out of town (or whatever) that weekend. The morning of the party, three other girls' moms called to say they had the flu, and wouldn't be able to come. Mom tried to cheer me up by taking me out to pick up my birthday cake and some party supplies, and while we were driving home, a car merged in front of us. In the back seat were the three girls who supposedly had the flu, laughing and horsing around and having a great time. One of them apparently noticed me in the rear view mirror, because all of a sudden, they turned around and fucking waved at me.
Ever since then, I've been pretty convinced that no one wants to come to my goddamn party anyway, and now that my paranoid fantasies are being borne out, I'm feeling a little petulant and bummed. I'm finding it kind of hard to get excited right now, but I'm sure it'll pass. I feel like a whiny, selfish ass for even giving a shit.
Various relatives on both of our sides can't be arsed to come to Pittsburgh or even write a little note on the reply card. Four attendees retracted their RSVPs today, due to unforseen circumstances. And then there are the multitudes of declines (seriously, scads of them) we got from folks who were timely and polite and lovely, and had very very good reasons that they couldn't attend, and were really sorry to be missing everything. Which is much much nicer than the "couldn't give a shit, sorry," people, but still means more empty seats.
Anyway. I'm having some complex emotions over this...I am sort of ashamed of myself for even caring, and I am reminded that there are a lot of wonderful, awesome people who are going to be there for us. But when more than 50% of your guest list declines, it's hard not to feel a little rejected.
When I was in elementary school, my mom tried to put together a birthday party for me. I didn't have a ton of friends as a kid --- to be honest, I didn't really have anyone I was super close to, outside of my family. But there were a few girls who were sometimes friendly with me at school or at Girl Scouts or during after-school projects, so I made up a list of ten invitees. It was the most people I'd ever invited over to my house for anything, and I was pretty excited.
Anyway, the week before the party, four of the girls' moms called to say their kids wouldn't be able to attend, so sorry, they were going to be out of town (or whatever) that weekend. The morning of the party, three other girls' moms called to say they had the flu, and wouldn't be able to come. Mom tried to cheer me up by taking me out to pick up my birthday cake and some party supplies, and while we were driving home, a car merged in front of us. In the back seat were the three girls who supposedly had the flu, laughing and horsing around and having a great time. One of them apparently noticed me in the rear view mirror, because all of a sudden, they turned around and fucking waved at me.
Ever since then, I've been pretty convinced that no one wants to come to my goddamn party anyway, and now that my paranoid fantasies are being borne out, I'm feeling a little petulant and bummed. I'm finding it kind of hard to get excited right now, but I'm sure it'll pass. I feel like a whiny, selfish ass for even giving a shit.