17 days away and just holding on for dear life

I haven't updated in a while, mostly because the rest of the semester since achieving ABD spiraled largely out of control. Without recapping everything, I'll just focus on where we stand 17 days before the wedding.

Robert and I are going to get married, even if we have to take people down in the process. Not a fun attitude to have for the happiest experience of one's life, but this seems to be the position we've been unwittingly slammed into.

We are currently dealing with a number of cousins coming up out of the woodwork all of a sudden who have dates they want to invite. Funny thing, to me, is that the invitations were out in February. We gave them an rsvp deadline of April 18th. Rather than even receive one of these cousins' rsvp at all (because apparently her mother failed to hand the invitation to her when it arrived), we have had to make phone calls tracking people down. And now they want to add guests. At the eleventh hour.

The seating chart has been finalized. The numbers have been finalized and reported to our vendors. The contracts have been signed and faxed. Payment is due in a few days. We're done. We're not adding people any more.

Where Robert and I are finding ourselves, unfortunately, is in the position of sounding like complete pompous assholes who simply refuse to budge even an inch, refuse to give in for a special relative's special circumstance (one date seems to be "the one"...yet I only found out about her existence last night). The reality is that we would love to invite everyone on the planet to our wedding, but we simply cannot. We don't have the funds or space. And now, to give people a ridiculously long rsvp deadline (my mom and I have agreed that for my sister's wedding, we're bumping the deadline way up--our deadline should have been April 1), and then to find out two and a half weeks before the wedding that they want to add another person...it's just rude and disrespectful and completely disregards any labor involved in adding just one more person. (Because you know that one person becomes one more person becomes one more person, ad infinitum. You can't do for one cousin what you refuse to do for another one or else you'll hear about it from all the rest of the family.)

There are consequences to every action, as well as to every inaction. When someone asks you to do something by a particular date, and you refuse to do it by that date, there are consequences. Maybe you don't get the meal you wanted. Or maybe you don't get to bring your date you kept meaning to ask about (whose name wasn't on the invitation).

It seems to me that there is a complete disconnect between the reality and people's fantasies for this wedding.

The wedding is a business. It's a sacred business, sure, but it's a business nonetheless. We're signing contracts, wheeling and dealing, paying nonrefundable deposits, and setting limits and deadlines. Every romantically nuanced element of this wedding was a business deal. There were verbal proposals, disagreements, even fights over every single decision. We had to pitch every single decision, persuade someone for every single decision, and work ourselves silly over the minutest detail for every single decision. Those who are unaware of the work and time and hurt feelings and healed feelings and tears and Kleenexes used...they will walk into the ceremony and reception sites and be awed at how everything "fell into place." Nothing "fell into place." Everything was put there on purpose and with considerable deliberation. Every tiny aspect, down to whether or not the bridesmaids had open-toed shoes and how shiny the sheen on the groomsmen's tuxedos should be, was a deliberate movement. Everything was a conversation.

Frankly, I'm the one who should be most offended by the presupposition of some of our guests (or perhaps their desired guests). We are not mind readers. If the rough list, when compiled on the rough master list (with a request in red to please read through it carefully and find errors, omissions, or additions...by a certain deadline), did not have the words "+ guest" for an individual, how are we to know that that person might be possibly dating "the one"?

It's insulting to me to watch my mom work herself nearly to illness, scrutinizing every decision (and not arbitrarily but because they are contractual and require this much scrutiny), to then turn around and see someone ignore her efforts and hard work, or to believe that they deserve special treatment more than any other individual in either family. On behalf of my mom, I am offended. I feel slighted. I feel as though Robert and I will be punished by these family members to whom we had to refuse dates we never knew existed.

My mom taught me a new mantra last night, during our seventh and final phone conversation (this one at 1 a. edt/midnight cdt). The mantra is:

An error on your part does not equal an emergency on my part.

Meaning: just because you made a mistake, it does not mean I should get my knickers in a wad and enter into emergency mode and throw my agenda off course.

Callous? Maybe. But sometimes we have to be a little more callous than the world wants because otherwise we open ourselves to doormat status. The mantra does not mean that I will not work with you to try to help you resolve your mistake. But it means I will not drop everything I'm doing to correct it. Your mistake is yours to fix. I'll do what I can and only that. And I expect the same treatment when I make a mistake because this is the reciprocity of responsibility. I will ask you to take responsibility for your actions and their consequences (holding you accountable), and I expect you to do the same for me. Once that is achieved, we will find mutual respect and willingness to assist when necessary.

I'm not sure how this post is going to be received by my general readership. I am already so very wound-up by what's happening in my family and my future family-in-law that I'm not interested in sparking any debates. If you feel it necessary to spark a debate, please refrain from doing so on my blog. I'm afraid that with the little sleep I've been getting over these past several nights and the amount of stress I'm feeling 17 days before the wedding that I could unwillingly lash out at someone who does not deserve it. Thanks for your understanding.