Wedding Blog
I was getting myself all worked up over something wedding related the other day, and then I remembered: it’s just seven hours. It’s just seven hours out of my whole life. But that’s not as impressive as the statistic I proceeded to work out with my digital abacus:
0.000859%. That’s the percentage of my life that our seven hour wedding comprises. I worked out the math, giving myself a lifespan of 93 years (it sounded like a good number). What is that? Eight ten-thousandths? I so enjoyed this arithmetical revelation that I tapped on the calculator a few more times:
53%: percentage of our wedding guests whom I’ve never met
11%: percentage of our wedding guests whom I’ve met once or twice
And finally,
o: number of additional wedding freakouts I’m going to have, considering the numbers above
This isn’t to say that I’m not going to do my best to have a beautiful wedding. But it certainly throws in a dash of perspective. Especially the thought that over half the people I’m working so hard to entertain/feed/impress, I don’t even know!
Anyone else in a similar boat - being a stranger to a large percentage of their guests? Has it affected the decisions you make, or the way you’re planning?
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Share this post: Now Go Out And Make That The Best .0008% You Can!
I love the number crunching! Totally puts a better perspective on things. I’m at the decoration stage right now and it helps to realize that probably no one will remember what the d*mn centerpieces look like a month later, anyway!
I will definitely keep this post in mind throughout the rest of my planning 
I think I’ve at least met MOST of the guests, though I’ve only met most of Mr. T’s guests 1-2 times. Surprisingly, the people I haven’t met are guests on my side of the family - “close relatives” my parents HAVE to invite even though I haven’t met them.
i know all of my 8o guests but 3, that are very close family friends of my Fi but that i never met.
But thanks for posting these percentages, miss lb, they + thinking that my guests are there for us and for their love for us and for no other reason, helps finding a more sane perspective on this little thing we’re working on…
P.S. I LOVE that you did the math.
P.P.S. I just noticed that you got engaged on Feb. 18th! Me too!
I am! It’s part of the reason why I am skipping the receiving line. I don’t know some these people (or haven’t seen them in years!) and they won’t be wearing name tags. I’m planning to go around table to table at dinner time and hope they have their places cards still in front of them, or bring a parent to help tell me who is who.
I actually had my mom say “Don’t forget to invite your step dads aunt in Syracuse” That was the extent of what we knew of her. I had to call my grandma to find out her name!
Why is she invited if I know that little about her - my family is nuts and assumes it’s a curtosey invite more then anything.
I’m still having my dream wedding (with the budget I have anyway) and trying not to think about how many people I don’t know all that well, if not at all.
We had the opposite situation with 43 guests and we both knew all of them. The only person Mr. Onion hadn’t met yet was my first cousin. Because it was so intimate I put a lot of thought into the details.
If I didn’t know half the people I don’t know if I would have worked to hard to impress them!
That’s something I was super strict on…I didn’t want any strangers at my wedding. When my guy and his mom said we should totally invite so-and-so, I asked if they were so cool, why hadn’t I met them before. Well, the very next weekend I met them and yep, they were awesome. In fact, they helped out at our wedding. The end numbers: out of 65 guests, I didn’t know 2 people.
Oh man, those numbers sound like they’d reflect my wedding, too! Most of the guest list for my family’s side is made up of my parents’ friends and random relatives, many of whom I’ve met a handful of times throughout my lifetime. It gets me a little bitter sometimes, thinking that this wedding is a “show-off” kind of party for my parents, bah.
I can absolutely relate! All my life I thought that I had a BIG family… my mother is one of 6- my father is one of 7 and I am one of 5…. and here I am looking at the guestlist and realizing that MY side will look mighty scarce compared to his JUMBO Filipino-Chamorro family.
At some point I do feel like I should intervene… but on the other hand it seems that EVERYONE is an “Auntie” or “Nina” (godmother)… we are visiting Guam later this year (me for the first time) and I am really considering leaving the ring at home as I am a little anxiety-stricken at the thought of ANOTHER “relative” popping out of the woodworks and expecting an invite. We come from different cultures and his family would be completely insulted if they were not invited (all million-trillion of them)…and worse- they will all attend…
Thank you for the mathematics to put me back in my place…. I really needed to hear that this was but a fraction in time- and will repeat it again and again on my trip….
-D
hah! I love that! I doubt I’ll live til 93, so I’ll guess I am already in the red with my complaining!
thank you for this post. seriously, thank you!
Hrmm, for wedding #1, Mr E. and I knew approximately 90 percent of the guests. Not bad!
At our Chinese banquet, Mr. E knew about 40% and I knew about 10% of the guests (if even).
Like Angel and knowing how parents can get out of hand, we instituted a policy that someone will only get invited if either my fiance or I know them. So we’ll know everyone at our wedding.
But like Mrs. Emerald, I think the only people I will know at the Hong Kong reception will be my fiance and my future in-laws.
GREAT POST !! I think this same thought (in the GRAND SCHEME of life, does this REALLY matter?) should be remembered about most things that people worry about ( especially High School social drama ! )
I was fairly determined that I did NOT want to be introducing myself to the people at my wedding. I know this sometimes can’t be avoided as there are family members who may live far away etc… but we did not include “plus ones” for anyone who wasn’t in a “steady, established relationship” just for the sake of them having ” a date” whom we probably both wouldn’t know, and tried not to go too crazy on the second cousins 5 times removed type of family.
I knew everyone at our wedding except one “plus one,” but Mr. Bluebell hadn’t met a couple of my family friends before.
At our Chinese banquet, there were about 3 tables for my family & our friends, 3 tables of Mr. Bluebell’s relatives that I knew, and 20 tables of people I’ve never seen before in my life. And when I asked Mr. Bluebell who they were, he had no idea.
[...] blogged a while back about not knowing 53% of our wedding guests. Which, if I’m totally honest, relieves me of a good deal of pressure. Why [...]
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Mrs. Lovebug, Tucson
Age and Occupation in 06: 31, Writer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Professional Game Show Contestant
Engagement Date: February 18, 2007
Wedding Date: April 19, 2008
Venue: Historic Inn
About Me: Likes: blogging, wikis, semi-colons, cuddling, fragrant flowers, syntax, and spooning. Dislikes: typos, dangling modifiers, flypaper, citronella candles, and run-ons. If I had my druthers, I'd exchange simple vows in a candlelit library. But I lost my druthers long ago...anyone seen them?
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