I hate weddings.

Now, generally speaking, I find them amusing/touching in fiction, but not so much in real life. Mostly they just seem to be "everyone fights for a year before the big day and then everyone just wants it the hell over with." Between that and the marital nagging I got once at every wedding I went to since I turned 18, let's just say that I didn't enjoy the excuse to dress up in the way I normally would. Not being a party planner by nature, I can't help but think that if hell froze over and I ever actually got married, eloping would be best.

It probably doesn't help that most weddings I've been to were either of people I didn't know or (in 1998, a bad year for weddings) were for people who really shouldn't have been getting married. I hadn't been to a wedding since '98 and sure didn't miss it. Luckily for me, I have friends that are perpetually single or married off, so I managed to miss the "all of my friends are getting married but me" stage of life that was supposed to be my 20's.

Now, at the last wedding I went to in 1998, Ron and Laurie's (god help us all), my Aunt Helen was all, "You're next!" to me. I was all of 19 and even then I thought, "No, I'm not next, Alicia's next." She was 13 at the time and I already knew I wasn't the next person related to me to be up at bat. And sure 'nuff, she met her future husband at age 18, the lucky bitch :P Now, I actually like the fellow quite a lot, and this made the second wedding I ever attended where I thought the parties involved should get married. But that said, I was still in "oh god, wedding, UGHHHHHHHHHHH" mode, and I am infinitely tired of hearing via Mom about whatever wedding infighting has been going on. (This is mostly all that she talks to the shrink about, too. The shrink is all, "Hey, how come you don't talk about yourself?") I couldn't help but think, "Is it really worth fighting for a year to have your big princess day?"

I wasn't too thrilled to come back from late partying last night and find out that I'd been volunteered to do wedding decorations at 9 a.m., either. At one point that morning Mom, being pissed off at me because I wouldn't brush my teeth while she curled my hair at the same time, said, "If you don't shape up, we're not going to go to this wedding." RIIIIIIIIIGHT. I turned around and said, "You know I don't WANT to go to this wedding, right?" She shut up.

Now, I mostly chilled out as I spent the morning tying various bows to chairs. It was surprisingly drama-free considering that I was dealing with nitpicky Virgo types, but I chalk it up to my aunt being at the hairdresser or whatever all morning and thus no mother-in-law fighting ensued. On the other hand, towards the end of the morning some extra bows were discovered and Mom and I got dispatched to decorate some railings, and Mom nitpicked this so effing bad. Meanwhile I was all, "It's 12:30, we're the last ones here, WE NEED TO GO FIND FOOD, let's just tie them on and GO, these railings are not going to make the wedding." I said this and she threatened to shoot me in the head. I am not making that up. Mom is a Virgo rising and she genuinely thinks the railings WILL make the wedding. Good LORD. I hope she enjoyed living vicariously through this wedding, 'cause we ain't doing this for me :P

Eventually around 2:30, things became more fun. The bridal party showed up and I got an amusing photo of Alicia in her slip posing with a bottle of Tylenol. Everyone was surprisingly non-crazy, except for those who had issues at the hairdresser, and it was actually fun hanging out there. I ended up being the one lacing Alicia into her dress because she got a corset-back one and I was the only one who knew how to lace the thing. (To quote my cousin Kristen, "Jenny's design degree finally came in handy.")

The wedding itself was pretty short, cute, featured lots of guys crying. And happily, it ended up not being too windy, which was something we were worried about. Pretty touching in the end, and that's saying something coming from me and my black heart.

And it ended up being...fun. Go figure. Got to see some folks we don't normally see, such as the chick that flew out from Dubai. (I kinda wish she'd move back to America, but I doubt it.) The extended family relatives (which is to say, my uncle's relatives, the groom's relatives, etc) were all cool and nice and friendly, and I can't help but think it's a shame we don't see then more often. I am also wondering, how does one refer to the relatives of their relatives? Is there a technical term for saying "my cousin-in-law's dad" or "the uncle of my uncle?" 'Cause there should be. Extended extended family?

And I got to do some dancing, which was fun. Y'all should have seen the routine the bride and groom did, which was all kinds of awesome. Much to everyone's surprise, my cousin Bill (a nerdy engineer/scientist guy) turned out to be a demon on the dance floor. Who knew? Apparently I surprised people by dancing at all, and got called "a tiger in disguise" by the aforementioned uncle of my uncle. Very cute.

I dunno...Like I said, I'm not into weddings, not ever getting married myself, but today I sort of got why people go through the Year Of Screaming up to the big day. Because it was a lot of fun. I'm still not sure if a year of screaming is worth one day, mind you, but I could kind of see it.

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