Monday, July 21, 2008

THE UNINVITED OR NOT MEMBERS OF THE WEDDING

Yvette and I had something very hurtful happen to us recently. One of our first cousins is getting married and we're not invited to the wedding. BUT OUR BROTHER IS! Ouch!

We have taken this situation apart and put it back together again several times. We wondered if something happened that we don't know about. We came up with nothing. Could it be the expense of the wedding and only a few family members were invited? I can understand that.

When I got married four years ago, we had a limit of one hundred guests. I had my own criteria for invitees. If I hadn't had dinner with you in the past three years, you weren't invited. Or if you still can't tell who's Yvonne and who's Yvette, guess who wasn't coming to the wedding? This worked for friends but when it came to family I was very careful. There was one situation, a family of second and third cousins, wherein I couldn't invite all four. We hadn't been in touch for several years but I still wanted representation of their family at my wedding. I picked up the phone and called my cousin and said that I could only invite two out of the four and they're welcome to use it any way they wish. My cousin came to the wedding with his daughter. His wife and son could've come because three people didn't show up and didn't bother to call - that's another story.

Yvette and I feel we deserve a phone call from our cousin. We happen to be very fond of him, we love him and he's always been good to us - I would say likewise but from his actions, maybe we haven't been so good to him. We are trying to get into his head. Doesn't he understand that you don't invite one of three siblings? Did I mention that our brother lives in California and we see him once a year? They just skipped over the twins in New York and reached all the way across the country to invite our brother and his wife.

I had a good talk with my brother and he was not aware of the invitations that got stuck in the mail or eaten by a bear. He said that a couple of invites were supposed to be 'taken care of'. He said that our cousin's brother is throwing a party for the family the day after the wedding and we're invited. Of course, we will be there. We will not ask about the wedding because there's no benefit in embarrassing people. We will probably not take a present because seeing people, especially family members, squirm isn't how we have a good time. We will be gracious and if and when someone offers an explanation or an apology, we will not encourage long discussions or excuses. We'll offer our congratulations and talk about what a beautiful day it is. And it will be a beautiful day because we'll be spending time with our one and only brother. We see him just once a year.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I only WISH I wasn't invited to my cousin's wedding!! Maybe it's a Jewish thing, but this whole concept of not wanting to make your family squirm for wronging you -- I DON'T GET IT!! That's the fun part!!! I know you're not planning on saying anything, but any shot he might read your blog?....