We brought dinner over to Chris’s friend’s house last night. This friend and her husband recently had a baby in July, and despite that, they are planning to come to our California wedding — with the baby, a car seat, and a whole lot of diapers in tow. It’s a heart warming thing to think that despite all the people who have declined that these new parents will be coming, even when it is harder to travel with an unpredictable infant with unpredictable needs. I was so happy when I saw our wedding invitation posted up on their fridge with magnets. Our wedding invitation is being loved!

Since we have made our wedding date and location official, we’ve heard all kinds of reasons for declining, everything from cost (understandable), limited leave time (unfortunately, understandably), having conflicting international non-profit work travel at the time of the wedding (that sucks but at least someone is doing something to help others with his life), being due for a baby the week after our wedding (very unfortunately understandable), having three kids under the age of five and being too difficult to travel (well, I just feel sorry for them and having three kids to deal with and no life outside of being a parent, which is one of my many life nightmares), and scheduling an extended holiday right before our wedding (not so understandable, but I’ll get over it). At the end of the day, our wedding will be what it is with the people who will show up. The ones who don’t show up, it will be their loss. The best thing to know is that of the people who do show up, they are proving that they care enough and are willing to make the effort. The others won’t matter as much. On the morning of my wedding, I won’t be lamenting that these people didn’t show up; in fact, I won’t even think about them at all and could care less.The only person in the world I will be really sad about not being there is my Ed. And in his case, he really had no way of making it.