The feelings you're not supposed to have at other people's weddings

I love weddings. I love: love, happy tears, cake, dancing, friends and family getting together, and champagne. Those are actually all in my top 25 favorite things, so really, I would expect to feel unadulterated joy at the recent slew of friends and acquaintances getting married and engaged. I feel a lot of things, and though joy is chief among them, I'm also a little jealous, curious, and some sort of strange fourth feeling I have yet to identify. The closer I am to the couple, the bigger the joy and the littler the other things. In this post, I want to dig a bit into those other feelings, but I also want to make it extra clear that I don’t mean to be judgmental, or negative. I don’t want anyone to feel I’m singling them out or subtweeting (subblogging?) as I write this. I want to do what I’m always trying to do, which is be honest and real about my experiences in hopes that it will help others who feel similar, or give someone the boost they need to be honest and real about theirs. I would love for this blog to spark conversation, and a chance for us to use social media to understand one another better, rather than stare at everyone’s curated pages feeling bad.

I'm not jealous because I'm particularly eager to get married, Miles and I are quite happy with our life and our relationship the way it is. We'll get around to it eventually, and please let us live in the meantime. I'm jealous that other folks are in a place where they feel stable and established enough to get married. I'm jealous that people can afford to get married. Forget a wedding, we couldn't even swing living without a roommate and putting him on my car insurance. Of course, I also know that none of my married friends have it all figured out either. I read an interesting piece once (which I tried to find, but the sheer volume of a google search for "millennials delaying marriage" made me think it may be impossible) that suggested an interesting idea about this. The basic idea is that it used to be kind of a given that getting married was one of the first things you did on your journey into adulthood, usually before or right after graduating from college, if you even went. As social and economic forces scrambled the traditional Job-Wedding-House-Kids path young people started to think about marriage less as an early step in becoming an adult, and more as a “whenever it makes sense” step, and in many cases, one of their last steps, to be taken once they feel their transformation to Real Adult is complete. I found this a really interesting way to look at it, though I think the difference is more personal, rather than generational, than the article suggested. I think I fall on the “last step” side of the spectrum. My parents got married in their thirties, with a full decade of independent life behind each of them. I always assumed I would do the same. This plan was slightly altered when I met Miles literally the first day of college, but my general outlook remains intact. So when friends get married, I tend to think of the stage of life I want to be at when I get married, assume that’s where they are, and that’s when the jealousy monster comes out to play. In reality, of course, these couples are just trying to navigate it all while also being married. Some will assert being married makes it harder, some that being married makes it easier, and the wisest of us will probably try to not make any assertions about other people’s relationships and marriages.

Weddings make me curious. I always wonder why now? I’m curious about how people come to decide on the timing of their marriage. How much of a role are practical considerations playing? What about family expectations, or the sense that it’s just the right time? I also have Big Questions about wedding finances, with the average American wedding costing close to $30,000.  I know that most people pay for weddings through some combination of money they’ve saved up, help from both sets of parents and, in some cases, debt. But still. How many 25 year olds are running around my life that just have tens of thousands of dollars? Where and more importantly when did they get it? Do they not have student loans? Do people save for their wedding before paying those off? Are people’s parents giving them that much money? Are they giving all their kids that much? Is this impacting their plans for retirement? If we spend our life savings on a wedding, how will we get a down payment together on a house? Does everyone I know and their parents just have way more money than I think? THIS DOES NOT ADD UP AND NOW I AM PANICKING. So if news of your upcoming nuptials causes me to start barfing all over the place, please assume I have recently googled something horrifying like “average wedding venue cost New England” or “median home price Greater Boston”  and don’t take it personally.

Here are some other things I sometimes feel about weddings, all of which I wish I did not feel:

Judgmental- While I don’t struggle much with judging people’s major life decisions (I promise I’m not on FB thinking your fiancé is a huge scrub or that you really haven’t know each other long enough) but what if you pick a wedding cake that I think is ugly? It truly does not matter or need to affect me at all, yet there I am, being a brat because I spend too much time on Pintrest. I don’t even have especially good taste, so this really makes no sense.

 Judged- Yes, I know that being a Judgy McJudgerson makes you paranoid that everyone is judging you so I take some responsibility for this. But no, we’re not engaged. Yes, we live together. Yeah, with a roommate (have you googled “median rent Greater Boston” recently?) Thanks for your concern about “locking it down” and “making it official.” After only dating for 7 years, having shared out entire adult lives,  and striving to love one another better every day as we build a future together, things are still pretty unofficial, so it’s super validating to hear everyone’s opinions on how we should become a real couple.

Nosy- I'm generally a nosy person, and I do not like this about myself. I know that weddings are stressful, and can cause drama and I want to drink it all up like a sponge. I'll be tactful, but inside I am dying to know who got in a fight with who about what and also how much you paid for everything. Sorry. 

Annoyed- There is just so much rigamarole, so much stuff I have to spend money on, so many rules, and so many platitudes. So. Many. 

Worn Out- It's a mathematical reality of our universe that for every person who gets married, two to three other people have an "I'm going to die alone" freak out. Most freak outs I am good and helpful (I'm a a real expert on having them, so I know what I'm talking about.) I'm supportive, and my signature move is telling you something you already know but in like, a nice way.But I'm horrible at this flavor of freak out, can't relate, and have little to offer besides the profoundly unhelpful "That's probably not true." It's hard for me to stand there being useless in between a friend who is crying because they feel completely unlovable, and another friend who is enjoying the happiest and most romantic day/time of their life. 

I do want to finish up by reminding you that I LOVE WEDDINGS. I was recently in the world's best wedding and I cried like a lil baby and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I go two sisters for the price of one. After all the running around and choreographed standing most of the day was pure joy. But the point of this post is that the pressure to feel pure joy all the time, around all things wedding is crazy, and you don't need to feel bad if sometimes you also feel other things. Excuuuuse me for containing multitudes.