Inviations

This past Sunday was the Super Bowl. For those of you who know me that is one of my favorite days of the year. I love the game, the storylines, the commercials, the food and the great excuse to get friends together. It doesn't matter the weather, the financial situation or whatever because it is the Super Bowl. There doesn't need to be any other reason to get excited and celebrate by hanging out with people. As tradition has it I invited a few people over to M and I's small (quaint?) duplex to watch the game. I would rather have invited more people, but I knew that there was only so much food and seating. I didn't want to have half of the people having to stand to watch the game. Because of that M and I invited only 7 people.

I contacted these 7 people individually and for the most part all of them were excited about the Super Bowl. I didn't think all of them would come over, but my expectations was that at least 5 of them would be there. Sunday rolls around and before I know it my cell phone was full of rejections to the party. One person who had previously let me know she was definitely in texted me to let me know that she couldn't make it to the game because of work. Another person who was 50/50 on coming didn't call or show up. One couple was tentative decided against coming for whatever reason. Finally, there was another friend who didn't want to inconvenience us since we would have had to pick her up. So to recap there were three tentatives and two sure things didn't end up coming.

That left our place filled with only 4 people, plenty of seats and food for a small army. It also annoyed me to no end since I don't understand why otherwise wonderful, nice people can be so difficult when it comes to invitations. People who reply tentative to parties almost never come and there is a good chance that people who say they will come will then back out. This makes parities very difficult to plan and as a host it can create a lot of frustration. Why do people act like that? Just make up your mind on a party and stick with it. If you can't come then say you can't come and if you like the person who invited you then provide a reason why you can't come. If you really want to be nice and show how you appreciate the invitation then ask about another time you can meet up and show the initiative to make sure that happens.

The reason for this long diatribe on invitations is that it relates to M and I's wedding coming up in 4 months. This is the next step for us in our wedding planning. We are finalizing who gets invited and then we cast out our net and see who we get. This is worrisome for us since we don't want to exclude anyone, but we also don't want to have a wedding of more than 150 people. It is hard to predict who from MS, MN and OH will be able to make to Columbus for the June 5th weekend. With so many out of town guests it can be hard to tell who will make the long, expensive trip.

One of my concerns is that people will either be late with their replies or not reply at all. Maybe this isn't a rational concern since you would think most people would understand the importance of replying to a wedding invite. Still I am concerned. If you would like to do me a favor just tell me if you are planning on coming to the wedding. I know the social norm on this is to send out invites and wait for a response, but if you are friends with me then don't worry about that.

Anyway, that is a wedding update for those of you who were interested.