Weddingbee Blog

People sometimes tend to lose all tact when it comes to anything wedding related. From the acquaintance who expects an invite to the relative who thinks they should decide how your dream day should be. It always astonishes me  how people forget to filter what comes out of their mouth when speaking to a bride-to-be.

I’ve had to handle the, “Am I invited?” question more than I thought possible. It’s always awkward; there isn’t an easy way to break it to someone, that, no, you are not, and what I’m best at is avoidance. They can probably tell they aren’t invited when I quickly look away or find an excuse to step away from the conversation—avoidance at its best. I find it hilarious that some people think they would be invited but at the same time it’s appalling that someone would even ask that question. I guess it could be taken as a form of flattery—that everyone and their mom really wants to attend your wedding. Nah, it’s still what I deem as tactless.

In the last few months, I suppose as the wedding is getting closer, I have run into what I consider to be the worst of tactless acts. After running into an old friend (who was sitting with someone I didn’t know) and catching up for a minute, the conversation suddenly turned into this:

“When is your wedding again?”

“It’s in January!”

“Thanks for inviting me…” followed by a brief silent moment, “Good luck with marriage, not that it lasts anyway.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Well, hey we are both divorced, so we speak from experience.”

At this point, I quickly wrapped up the small talk and returned to my table where I vented to my recently married friend, who also experienced this in the months leading up to her wedding.

Okay, so the two were a bit cynical. Their wives left them and now they are single men in their late 30s living in a small town with an even smaller pool of women. Clearly I’m entering into this marriage with full faith that it will last. And, thanks for being Donny Downer while I’m basking in my, “I’m about to be married!” state of mind. Your opinion is certainly not going to change my mind about marriage and the commitment that accompanies it.

I thought (and hoped) this would be the only time I encountered such poor taste of opinion. Unfortunately, it was not. It happened the weekend of my bachelorette party, where it doesn’t get any more obvious that a girl is really stinkin’ excited to be getting married. The bride-to-be sash, the flashing weenies, the penis straws? Those aren’t normal weekend accessories—I’m very publicly celebrating my upcoming nuptials. As I stood outside with BM Hogan, a s a young male in an oversized yellow shirt approached us and stated something sarcastic along the lines of, “Good luck with that, it’s never gonna work.” Then he turned around and walked away. I remember yelling something at him about his poor choice of clothing, something like “Screw you and your stupid-huge yellow shirt!” It was definitely influenced by the two or twelve drinks that I had consumed throughout the evening. I’m sure me calling him out on his ridiculous attire didn’t faze him, as he continued to strut up the street. And his tactless opinion didn’t faze me, because again, I’m not changing my view on marriage based on his drunken statement.

It’s sad that people are so jaded about marriage, and even more sad that they feel the need to rain on the parade of a bride-to-be. The silver-lining to the negative opinions is that my man doesn’t feel this way. He does believe in marriage and the commitment. He does have faith, like me, that it will work. When the naysayers throw around their unwelcome opinions and speak without tact, I will be thankful that I found Mr. Honey who is ready to be my husband.

Have you been on the receiving end of a snarky opinion on your wedding or marriage? What opinions/remarks/advice do you find to be tactless?