i know the real reason i'm in a funk. it's because of my wedding. more specifically, my family's failure to show up at my wedding. allow me to elaborate.
as some of you know, i got married earlier this month. we invited 129 people and 75 RSVP'd. that's pretty pathetic in itself, but it gets worse. the day rolls around, i'm in my dress, waiting for everyone to finish up, and my mom comes in. she tells me that my aunt, her younger sister, and her entire family won't be coming. excuse me? my aunt, who it's well known to everyone but herself, is controlled by her anxiety. and evidently she got so upset at leaving the milwaukee city limits to drive 45 minutes to zion, il, that she was physically ill. she blames it on some medication she was taking. so then why couldn't the other 3 members of her family come? oh, wait, i know. because they don't give a shit. mark 4 unused, but paid for, plates. and nary a word from my aunt. no phone call, no card, no gift, nothing.
then my uncle, my mom's younger brother (my aunt's fraternal twin) and his wife, also bails. rumor had it that he had been sick, but no one really knew why he wasn't there, at the time of the wedding. when we were on our honeymoon, my uncle called my grandma's and i talked to him. he apologized to me and said that he had had radiation poisoning. i laughed. "yeah, right. for real?" for real, he says. i guess he was arc welding without protective gear on and got UV poisoning. yeah, that's my uncle. chalk up some more unused food for him and his wife.
during picture time, after the ceremony, my dad asked if i had heard anything from his sister, Judie. nope, not a thing. she was supposed to come with her daughter, my cousin Micki, and Micki's husband, John. none of them showed up, either. my dad never got a call on his cell, but when we got home on Monday, i had a message on my machine from my aunt judie, left at 8:30am on sunday morning. yeah, i wasn't home. she wrote me an email that apologized for them not being there, but John had gotten really sick and was in the hospital. i replied and expressed my concern over John's health. my aunt was kind of vague, which lead me to believe that he had been sick, but that it wouldn't have been impossible for her to make it without them. that's more wasted food for those empty seats.
you may think i'm pissed about the money and food. but it's really the complete lack of respect for me and my husband-to-be. somehow, i've been marginalized by my own family. but the really sad thing is that this is the way i've been raised. if you don't feel like doing something, if you'd rather save your gas or clean your house instead, but you can't think of a better excuse, you just bail. and here it's bitten me in the ass. because as much as i want to believe that my wedding was cool, it really wasn't. we had room too big for the amount of people who showed up (even if everyone had shown up it still would have been cavernous). there was one whole table empty. we had a dance floor with no dance-able music. we didn't have a DJ, so no one was announcing anything, like "hey, they're cutting the cake" or "hey, it's time for a toast." most people left before cake was served. it was supposed to go until 4 or 5, but with no dancing you can only hang around so long before getting bored. my dad left around 3:30. it was really totally pathetic.
if i could do it all over again, i would have just invited people to dinner in the city and just paid for whomever showed up, like my friend, erin, did. but now ive made a serious dent in my savings just to find out how little i matter to the people who are supposed to love me. so forgive me if i'm a little terse these days. weddings are for idiots and people who have large, rich, controlling families.
oh, and i'm never going up to milwaukee to visit my aunt again. or at least not until she calls me to apologize. so yeah, never.
