Our new neighbors/friends are getting married this upcoming Saturday. While we do seem to enjoy each other's company, I hadn't entertained the possibility of a wedding invitation as we've only known them since December. We gave them a little wedding gift (cookbook and candleholders) a few weeks ago when we saw them for dinner but that's just because we like them not because we were gunning for a slice of wedding cake.
Last week, we had a voicemail from Alison telling us that it was probably a tacky and totally informal but would we like to come to their wedding? Since we don't have plans for Saturday evening, we agreed that sure, we'd love to go. When I spoke with her to let her know, she said that she'd bring down an invitation with all the information over the weekend. As in the weekend that ended three days ago.
I remember the last week before the wedding and I'm sure theirs is compounded because while they live here, all their family and friends are coming into town (the wedding is in Santa Fe) so there is all that to coordinate as well. But when we hadn't seen an invitation as of yesterday, Paul and I were starting to get concerned that maybe we weren't really invited. Or that maybe they'd figured out that they didn't have room and didn't know how to tell us. Do we just show up in Santa Fe at the allotted time and hope they were serious? We'll only know the bride and groom at this fete so it's going to be a little awkward to begin with--just coming in and saying "Hey, y'all!" seems like it could be even more awkward. I didn't want to NOT show up since I'd managed to blather on about how touched we were to receive the invitation and how Paul is looking forward to cake and and and (I never know when to shut up when leaving a message). We thought that maybe we could just go to the ceremony and then cut out for a pizza but how many people would see us at the ceremony and then not at the reception and wonder who the two crazies were. But if we weren't supposed to be at the reception, it could be strange. When do we call? Should we call? Does it seem pushy to call? So this whole thing was throwing us for a loop as to how to behave. It had potential disaster written all over it.
Last night at dinner with Paul's parents, we raised this social question and my mother-in-law, bless her, was quick with the correct way to handle it. Call to confirm the time. Brilliant! THIS is why I need grown-ups in my life. Prior to this suggestion, I was just planning to blather on and on in the message as I've done in this post about how I didn't know if we were really invited and how we totally understand if they had changed their minds and wedding cake normally isn't that good to begin with no offense or anything.
Taking my MIL's advice, I left a nice concise message this afternoon--Hi, we were just needing to confirm the wedding time because we inadvertently deleted your earlier message with the information. (OK, not really but she doesn't need to know that.) I've got Summer School this afternoon but I'll be home around 6:00 (in case she wants to bring down the invitation) or you can leave a message on the home phone or my cell (she knows the numbers and I was so concise I didn't even leave these). I hope everything is going well and that no one is having trouble getting to town. Talk to you later! Bye!
But I have absolutely NO IDEA what we'll do if she doesn't call back. Full-blown panic and a poll of everyone I know as to what to do will probably occur.
Oh, and should we take a bigger, better gift now that (most likely) we'll be going to the ceremony/reception and having a meal? GAH! Yet another reason why Paul and I do better as quasi-hermits. . .
Update at 8:30: Promptly at 6:00, an invitation was delivered to our door. Alison was waiting for her mom to get into town with extra envelopes before she brought it down (she had mentioned last week that she didn't have any envelopes left I'll buy that reason). And we've decided against another wedding gift because we gave them our push mower that we used about a half-dozen times when we had real grass and has been sitting in our garage for the past five years since because I didn't know what else to do with it. We won't use it again as long as we live here so it was nice to be able to pass it along.
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2 comments:
Thanks for the update... I was wondering what happened. And a push mower is a great wedding gift (even if it wasn't meant as one.)
This couple sound like they need you and Paul in their lives from what you have told me earlier. I think that your phone message was wonderful and I'm sure she was embarrased that she was so tardy getting you the invitation when she said she would earlier than she had and didn't know how to handle that either and had to wait for her mom to give her the courage just to face you again.
By the way we mothers and MILs like to be needed. We don't have all our sage advice for nothing. :)
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