Day 44: No obligations

I received an email from W yesterday. It was so out of the blue. She wrote to me after reading my entries on this blog and shared with me her feelings about her recently ended relationship. She was also honest enough to admit she thought about making excuses to wriggle her way out of attending my wedding, because she just wasn't in the mood to celebrate love.

I appreciate her honesty and her email really touched me. Not in a "aww, so sweet" way, but the fact that she felt comfortable enough with me to be so frank about her feelings. That's what friends are about. Being able to share our thoughts and feelings, even if they may not be happy, positive ones.

I would perfectly understand if any of my guests did not want to attend, for whatever the reason may be. I have quite a number of close friends overseas and I have agonised about whether or not to include them. In the end I left them out because I didn't want them to feel obliged to travel all that way and spend so much money just for this occasion. The last thing I want is to make guests feel obliged.

That's the whole point of having only 50 guests. After subtracting my family and my mother's friends, I am only inviting 20 pals. These are friends (yes they could have once been my colleagues, but are now my friends) who have known me for years that I WANT to invite. Not someone who joined the department last Monday, who I would have to feel obliged to invite and who would have to feel obliged to come, "show face" and give ang pow.

As guests, your feelings matter too. Like I told W, if I had just broken up with my boyfriend, I would be too bitter to want to go to a wedding and see a happy, loving couple. Some of us also, are just not so into weddings, and I don't expect you to pretend you're loving every minute of it. But some of you I can tell, are genuinely excited like me.

We are all different and we all have different inclinations and preferences. I've always liked weddings because I am the sad, soppy sort who believe in true love, and would seize every opportunity to see it in reality. I also like it because it gives me the rare chance to dress up and look pretty. I also like to sample different hotels' food.

But with my hand on my heart, I can definitely say I have never been to a wedding half-heartedly. There was one wedding I went to even though I knew I was going to meet my nemesis, but I still showed up. But there were also weddings I avoided going to because I didn't want to see people who were horrible to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, come and join in the celebration if you really feel you want to, and if you value me as a friend, do what W did.

Be honest with me about your feelings.