A Wedding Do

I'm a girl. A girly girl. I love shoes and pink and wearing dresses. I giggle and I cry at sad movies and pet commercials. I'm terrible at sports, I scream when I see a spider, and I don't like getting dirty. I love Disney and princesses and I know almost every word to every song in A Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. So what I am about to tell you may not make sense.

I hate weddings. I don't necessarily hate the idea of them and I know they're some kind of tradition and rite of passage and ceremonial whatever, but I hate going to them. I cringe when I get a wedding invitation. If you are trying to cut back on your guest list, feel free to remove me from the invite list. My feelings won't be hurt, I will breathe a sigh of relief.

Seriously, weddings are only for the people getting married and maybe their parents, if the parents are happy about it. Nobody else really cares. Not about the actual ceremony part. It's boring. First you sit there waiting forever because it's against the rules for a wedding to start on time. I have been sunburned sitting at outdoor weddings. And then there's the ceremony with the words. Sometimes there are too many; sometimes you can't hear them. For me, it's all one big yawn-fest.

This weekend I totally figured out how to do a wedding right. Skip the ceremony. Pass Go, and go straight to the reception. It's brilliant!!

KY's friends got married this weekend. We were coming back from Portland and got in town about 10 minutes before the wedding started. I had the perfect excuse of having a presentation due for school so I bowed out gracefully. And then I got bored. And also realized that I hate doing some things alone and I was probably a Very Bad Girlfriend for not being there. So I threw on a dress and headed down to the reception.

This is definitely the best way to go to a wedding. Because it's the party part, duh. You still get to see the white dress and the bridesmaid's dresses. But you get to drink booze and talk and relax and eat and laugh. Plus, the reception is where the bride and groom are doing all of that too. They're past the nervous part and the possibly-sad-teary part and they get to be themselves. Their best party selves.

When the sister of my best friend in elementary school got married, my family was only invited to the reception. This is because her family was Mormon and, because we weren't, we weren't allowed inside the temple for the ceremony. I assume the reception was not in the temple, but I don't know because we didn't go. Something about my mom thought it was tacky and we weren't good enough to be in their church or maybe it was just a long drive, I don't know. All I know is that is totally the way to do it. Maybe I should befriend a bunch of Mormons so I have a legitimate excuse not to go to the wedding but I can still go to the party.

Maybe I can start a new trend. I don't even think the couples will mind that much. I'll still bring a present. And toast to happiness. I will be the best party guest there. Just let me skip the "I dos" and go straight to the booze.

Cheers!