Whose wedding is it anyway?
Have you heard that phrase before, “your marriage, our wedding”? It is synonymous with weddings. My goodness, the tales one can tell.
I once attended a wedding that had about a 1,000 people, yes there were a 100 tables in the reception area. It did come with it’s challenges, a few hiccups here and there, seating people was a nightmare, moving about was horrific! The worst part came when it was time for food service, the couple wanted a buffet style and there were constraints when it came to food points. There was one main serving place and inside were three food points. Three food points for a 1,000 people can you imagine? Of which one food point was for vegans, so everyone else only had 2 food points to choose from! There was plenty of food no doubt everyone ate and the food was delicious but I mean by the time table 80 ate, table 1 was probably starving already lol.
Now after having met the couple who left Zim donkey years ago and were now based overseas I couldn’t help but wonder where a 1,000 people came from. You guessed it, parents. On the day of the wedding, I hardly saw the bride and groom interacting with anyone “on the floor.” They kept to themselves and their wedding party which obviously consisted of their closest friends and relatives.
The wedding was packed with the parents’ friends from work, church etc, the mum had a list from here to Timbuktu of her friends and where she wanted them to seat and they had a specific diet and and and and…man I was shocked! Genuinely shocked and the worst thing about having such numbers is that after eating people start leaving so you can easily see the gaps when you are sitting at the high table and its depressing! When there are so many people no one feels obliged to stay cause who is going to notice?
Sometimes people think the more numbers, the more money you will get from gifts and the likes, wrong! It does not work like that, the higher the numbers, the higher the cost and if you are forking it all out it means added stress. I know sometimes it’s hard to say to your parent, “mama no! we are not inviting Mrs Nhingi just because she taught me in Sunday School, I don’t even remember her!” mothers can be so dramatic, “so you don’t want the neighbourhood to know my child is getting married, mai Nhingi once gave us sugar when we didn’t have we must invite her…” if I go on I could write a book.
If you don’t want to have that conversation with your parent(s) because you know you have a soft spot, have a destination wedding and people make their own way don’t provide transport lol, only the serious people will actually RSVP and pitch up.
If a destination wedding is off the books (as is the case with most people) then you will definitely have to have the talk with your parents/family well before you start planning so everyone is on the same page. We know how extra our family can get sometimes. The last thing you also want is your mum to have a sour smile on your wedding pictures because she couldn’t invite all her 100 “friends” from the ladies church department.
So be smart and good luck!
