Sometimes, I feel like I�m caught in a timewarp. It�s either like time is moving very quickly, or it�s not moving at all. In the case of right now, it feels like the past month or two have been an eternity. Since I�m not in unbearable pain, the feeling that time is moving very slowly is actually a good thing. Maybe it�s always been like this. Maybe it�s always felt like the present was at the bottom of the curve. When you look back in time, it seems like it was so far away. College seems like a faraway experience for me now. It�s like the haze of what it was like to be in college is settling over my eyes, and I can�t even remember it anymore.
I hate that I can start stories with, �Back when I was in college��
Then when I look into the future, it, too, seems so far off. The idea of Christmas seems like its an eternity away. The present, however, seems to take forever. It�s not that I feel every hour of the nine that I�m at work, or that I feel every minute of the hour that I�m in a group fitness class. It�s that I feel every minute of every day. Eight hours of sleep seems like an extremely long time. The end of the day seems so far off. And again, it�s not a bad feeling, not at all. I kinda like just feeling as if the world were stagnant around me.
Well�.except when it involves a family wedding�.
Alright, for those of you who don�t want to see how much of a snob I can be, you MUST turn away now and not read. For the rest of you, who enjoy seeing someone sink so low, I invite you to continue�
Cousin J got married this week to his fianc�e who is now Cousin T. I have no idea how long they were seeing each other, being as that the only other time that I�d met her was at Christmas at Cousin D�s house. I believe that they were already engaged by then. Being as that Cousin D and Cousin J are the products of Aunt C�s first marriage, they�re not exactly close to this side of the family.
That, actually, is an understatement.
They could care less what happens with regard to this side of the family. I don�t entirely know why, but I know that they had a relatively crappy childhood to which they owe a great thanks to my formerly drug-addicted aunt, and their formerly alcohol-addicted father. Needless to say, they barely know what my name is, let alone anything about me.
Anyway, the wedding was wayyyyyyyyyy out in the boondocks. I was originally under the mistaken impression that the wedding was going to be in Mt. Pleasant. Mt. Pleasant is nice, right? There�s casinos there. It�s got to be near civilization, right? No, I was wrong. The wedding and reception, I think, were in this tiny tiny town called Ithaca. In fact, it took over three hours to get there, and some idiot drew the map wrong. I discovered while being lost, though, that both the wedding reception and our hotel were conveniently located near a prison.
THE HOTEL
The hotel was a Days Inn. I�ve never had a problem with any of the �Inn� hotels. They�re all pretty much priced in the same range, offer the same amenities, etc. The hotel that we were staying in was $80 a night. This lead me to believe that it would be up to the standard of hotel room that I�m used to staying in. Nothing too fancy, but decent surroundings.
Wow�.I was impressed.
When we walked into the room, it was probably about 40 degrees in the room. These were not rooms that were within another building. These were rooms that had doors leading to the outside. So, since there was no building to keep the room warm, the only source of heat was the heater that was basically shoved into the wall. The wall was cut, incorrectly, and the heater was just put in there. It actually let cold air in more than it produced warm air. The bathroom was tiny. There was barely any shampoo or soap or anything. The TV was about 13 inches. The room was in worse condition than my dorm rooms in college.
Yeah�..fun�..
So the heater, when set on the lowest setting, heats the room like an inferno. You have your choice between being swelteringly hot or freezing.
THE WEDDING �HALL�
The wedding reception was held in something called a VFW [veterans of foreign wars] hall. I, personally, had no idea what that meant until we got there. Apparently, everyone else in the world know what it means, but I didn�t. Thankfully, I had my mother with me to alert me that this wasn�t going to be a very �formal� wedding. I was wearing a knee-length black dress with my hair curled and makeup on. I wouldn�t have considered that very formal at all. I was overdressed, apparently.
When we arrived at the hall, it reminded me, strangely, of the seedy bar that my stepsister hangs out in. There was a little tank sitting out front and it was next to batting cages. When we got inside, I noticed that it was pretty, bright fluorescent lighting, and long white tables with no table cloths on them. The decorations consisted of streamers and balloons.
The �bar� [and I use that term loosely] served your choice of wine, whiskey, and keg beer. When I tasted the beer, I found myself wondering how, exactly, I managed to drink that for four years�.
Anyway, the food involved baked beans, corn, bread, some kind of Mexican salad [which was REALLY good], deep fried turkey, and Hawaiian style ham. I didn�t like much of the food except that salad. My mother estimated the cost of the food at like $10-$15 a plate.
They decided to buy only one small wedding cake, and then their friends at the hotel/casino that they work at baked all these �little� cakes for each table. This was, in my opinion, a brilliant idea. I mean the cake people did a great job of making them look like the original wedding cake. However, they gave us plastic knives to cut up our cakes into little pieces. Click HERE to see their cute little cakes.
People were literally dressed like hookers or wearing jeans. I was seriously overdressed at the wedding. I can�t even fathom people thinking that it�s alright to wear denim to a wedding, but they did. Then, it seems like 90% of the people there were smokers, so I had to deal with all this smoke in the air.
Okay, I�m done with my snobbery.
As I have so clearly stated, the wedding reception was not my cup of tea. However, if that�s all that they could afford and they were happy with it, more power to them. That is one of the reasons why I would go without a wedding, though. I�d rather go ALL OUT than live within my budget if I were to actually have a wedding. That being said, the reception was actually pretty fun. Cousin J and T were very happy with themselves. In fact, T was the kind of bride that was not snobby in the least. She was having a great time and she made sure to let everyone know it.
In fact, she was very cute, actually. During about the sixth glass-clinking during dinner, she stood up, finished chewing said, �ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT!� and just planted one on Cousin J for everyone to see. Again, very cute.
She also danced! I was so impressed. Every other wedding that I�ve been to, the bride has been too busy talking to people to dance. Don�t get me wrong, T made her rounds, but she also made sure to have fun. She was also very gracious and made sure to thank everyone who came.
Even Cousin J wasn�t his usual snarky self to me, and Cousin A managed to enjoy himself [he actually looked like a little James Bond in that suit].
It was nice seeing all of these people that I haven�t seen since I was 5 again. It really did seem like everyone was having a great time, as did I.
So, in the end, does it really matter what the surroundings were like? I�m not so sure, really. I mean, if everyone had fun, everyone enjoyed themselves, and J and T were having a good time/were happy, does it really matter how expensive of a hall they rented?
No, probably not.
I�m still not sure that I want to put the money into a wedding though. =]
