I was just looking through my drafts…so funny to see my half finished posts! I do write more than gets posted I guess. A challenge for me: write BEFORE I play Candy Crush. Candy Crush is sucking my life away. I love the game – all three versions I have on my phone. I can be productive IF I only get my 5 lives, but when they give me unlimited lives for 2+ hours, I feel I must use that time and hence nothing gets done. Such a waste of time and the funny thing…when I’m traveling, when I have all this time to kill in a hotel room or on a bus or in an Uber, I don’t play. I don’t even want to play, no desire. Explain that.
So what brought me to WordPress today? I was looking through my Facebook profile on public to ensure my posts have been posting to the privacy level I want. It’s sooo easy to lose track of who your audience is on Facebook, so I try to do this every couple of months. Profile photos are always public and so that is mainly ALL my public profile is. I ran across this photo:
Great shot, right? I look good, Zach looks good, we look happy, right? For this brief moment we were.
And the memories of when this photo was taken come flooding back. I’ve never written about it, but I felt like today I should. I haven’t before because, well, I don’t blog much, but also because this was a special day for someone and I didn’t want my negativity to cloud that beautiful day for her. I doubt she reads my blog, but if she does…please don’t take this personally. And lastly, my husband is amazing and I don’t like to be negative about him, but this wasn’t his day. Sometimes a lot of little things just melt into one bad experience.
Let me set the stage. This was a few years ago. Earlier this day, we’d sold our first house. The house we’d lived in for 12 years, the house both our kids had ever call home, was signed over to someone else. While we were able to take a big check to the bank, there were a lot emotions and we had just three days to move out. We were taking a break for a to attend this wedding.
I love weddings! I especially love attending weddings with my husband. They are like the ultimate date night. Watch two people madly in love express their love to the world and remember our love – hold hands, whisper sweet things to each other, smile, dance. This is joy to me. Even with the kids in tow, this is how I experience weddings.
This wedding was no different. I was excited to go – had been for months and it was so close to our anniversary. The wedding was for one of Zach’s former co-workers and a bunch of work people (women) were going. It was outside and a western/county type wedding.
I wore a cute short (much shorter than I normally wear) dress I know Zach likes with high boots. I did my makeup and even wore jewelry. I wanted Zach to be excited to have me by his side.
Zach looks hot too. He wore the dress pants I like and looks real sharp. The kids were dressed nicely too, although I don’t remember the specifics anymore.
We left a bit early as we had to drive across town in rush hour traffic and didn’t want to be late. We weren’t. We were plenty early, about 15-20 minutes. We waited in the parking lot for the rest of the work folk before we began the longish walk to the ceremony site.
It was really cold and windy, slightly rainy. Zach walked with his employees leaving me to drag the cold children behind us as I tried to keep my skirt from flying up and exposing me to the world. I became so uncomfortable, so quickly and regretting my decision to dress in the “not-Jenn” dress.
We took our seats and we were all cold. We were still early and we had blankets in the car, so I asked Zach to go get them. My request wasn’t received well. It was a long walk and he wanted to talk to his work people. I didn’t want to have to worry about my dress the whole walk there and back. Eventually, someone he works with went with him to the car and all was good.
The ceremony was short and sweet. Good thing, because the kids weren’t having it. They were hungry, tired, cold and bored. A bad combination.
The reception was another longish walk to a barn. Again, I was the tail, as I watched Zach walk and chit chat with his right hand woman.
The reception was so cutely decorated and had lots of outdoor “county” games to play while we waited for the bride and groom. Unfortunately, it was cold, so none of us wanted to be outside and my kids wanted food. We went in and decided to claim our seats so all the work people could see at a table as there didn’t appear to be any assigned seating.
We were at a table. The work people filled the entire table and everyone else was coming in and getting settled. There were only 1 and 2 open spots open at the rest of the tables when the wedding organizer came to our table and said we had to move as that was the table for the brides family. Zach wasn’t there, I can’t remember where he’d gone this time. I had a lot of stuff (blankets, bag with things for the kids) and a two and four year old who were in melt down mode to move. I told her okay, I’d work on it and began to make the move.
I couldn’t move without having a place, I couldn’t see a place and didn’t have a scout, so I was kind of waiting it out, waiting for Zach to come back and help me. I didn’t make it. I got yelled at again to move. So we did. I stood up with my kids and walked to the wall with all my stuff, and set it down. The kids didn’t understand why we were moving. Two people came and sat at the table that we’d been at (mother and father I think) and glared at us. The kids started crying. I crouched down, trying to soothe them and probably exposing myself to everyone. We were causing a bit of commotion and were getting stares from everyone. I finally sat on the ground as Zach came back.
He asked why we were sitting on the ground by the door. I tried to explain the situation to him and he too pointed to the table we were sitting at and said, “Let’s sit there.” I told him we weren’t welcomed there. The rest of the employees had filtered through the crowd and split up and sat at separate tables, but I couldn’t really put my two year old with a bunch of people she didn’t know, could I?
The bride and groom came in…in the door right next to me, so everyone continued to stare. The “parent’s” who’d taken our table, continued to glare and give me the evil eye. Zach finally got the organizer’s attention and asked her where she expected us to go. She pointed to a cocktail table with no chairs, because you know, that is a perfect eating situation for two young children. At this point, I’d had enough. I looked at Zach and said, “We aren’t welcome here. I’m going to sit in the car with the kids. You can stay and enjoy the wedding.” And I left.
Zach chased me a bit, then let me go. A few minutes later he came to the car and said we could come in and sit at our original table. By this time, Lynzie had fallen asleep and I didn’t feel comfortable sitting with the people who’d sat their and glared at me. Nor did I want to bring anyone down. I told him he could take Isaac and do what he wanted.
The boys went back to the wedding and I sat in the car and cried and cried. I cried so hard – for two hours. I wanted so to post to Facebook and get people to engage with me – tell me they understood my misery – but I resisted and I’m so glad I did
Zach wasn’t the first one to leave the wedding. I’d say about half the people left before I saw him and Isaac again. They brought me a plate of food, but it was cold and gross and I was overly hungry and emotional and so it didn’t go over well. Which led to Zach yelling at me and me yelling at him and turning an already miserable wedding experience into an even worse one.
Good thing we had a long drive (about an hour) to get home, as we didn’t speak most of the way home. Eventually I explained how I felt left in the dust and how much I always look forward to weddings. He explained he didn’t have any intentions of treating me that way, but can see how I could have experienced that. We forgave. We moved on.
It is still the worst wedding experience that I didn’t really attend. This photo was taken in the few moments after we arrived before my world slid down into the gutter, but it brings back all these raw emotions every time I see it. I hope that the bride and groom were oblivious to my experience. Although I left mid-wedding, so that’s a bit far-fetched, maybe a better hope is that my missing presence and the circumstances around it did not taint their day. I hope that their day was filled with all the joy that I experienced on my wedding day and that their marriage is long and filled with happiness and love.
