The first was the wedding of one friend and one acquaintance from high school, getting married at 19. I played an indirect role in their coming together. They stayed married for about a decade, divorcing amicably with no children.
The second was about a decade later, when my (younger) brother got married.
I would have gone to the wedding of another friend in (I think) 2008, but we were on the outs at the time, temporarily. I was toasted at the wedding for my more direct role in bringing them together. Incidentally, they’re going through divorce proceedings right now.
In the thread about big weddings, people mentioned going to quite a few. I know it’s a common topic of conversation, and I hear about other people I know getting married and/or attending weddings.
It’s easy to explain. I don’t know any of my cousins, and haven’t seen any of them since the 1990s, despite occasionally being in the same city as a couple of them. I made no lasting friendships in undergrad/college/university, and am not in regular contact with anyone I knew from that setting. I thought I did better in graduate school, but it’s too soon to tell, and few of them seem to be getting married at the moment.
In and of itself this doesn’t bother me, but it seems like a proxy for how socially rejected and isolated I am. Is it?
I wouldn’t worry too much about it - the number of weddings you’ve been to isn’t a good measure for how much of a loner you are. Getting tons of invites to weddings (or parties, baby showers, etc, etc) is just a sign that you have an especially wide social circle. It’s possible that you find it more comfortable to have a smaller number of very close friends, which would have the result of a fewer number of events going on in friend’s lives. This idea is reinforced by the fact that in most of the weddings you mentioned, you played a part in bringing the bride and groom together, meaning you were a fairly close friend of theirs.
On the other hand, I could be totally wrong, but I get a sense from your post that you’re a bit dissatisfied with your social life. In that case, you might have some things to figure out - but I think wedding attendance isn’t really relevant to that.
No, I don’t think so. A lot just depends on circumstances.
I am 52 years old and have NEVER been to a family wedding! I’ve been invited to a couple, but since they were out of state I did not go. My family is very small, and once married, they stay that way (there’s only one person in my whole extended family who has been divorced and that person is too distantly related to have invited me to any of the ceremonies in the first place). The few folks who got married later in life had small justice-of-the-peace type shindigs and just didn’t invite anyone beyond who they needed to have as witnesses.
Amongst my friends, I’ve been in a couple and attended a handful, but I think as you get older, the hoopla tends to be less important, people scatter, and the guest list tends to get smaller as a result.*
Add to that the fact that families in general tend to be smaller now, people are getting married older (and are thus more likely to be paying for things themselves and understanding that spending a ton on one day’s festivities probably isn’t really worth it) and maybe there’s just less invitations going around.
or then again, maybe you end up with dropzone’s example. Apparently the people in my own life actually are in possession of some common sense …
I’m one of the people in the other thread that said they’d gone to a lot of weddings (at least 2 dozen in 35 years) and I am by no means a popular person.
I don’t come from a particularly large family but I’d say more than half of the weddings I’ve been to have been family weddings. Like my mom’s cousin’s kids, even.
The other weddings have been friends’ weddings. A few of them I was surprised to get invited to and then I think the hosts were surprised I showed up! Ha! But I have learned that I like to get dressed up and go dancing, so that’s my excuse. And I’m truly honored to be asked and truly happy for those people.
Two might be a small number maybe, but it really all depends. If you don’t have relatives and friends getting married then who’s weddings are you going to go to?
I’ve been to a ton of funerals too, by the way. Probably about as many as weddings. It doesn’t really have anything to do with weddings or being popular, but I’m surprised that I’ve run into plenty of people my age who haven’t been to…any!
I was out of the country from age 22 to 30. I missed everyone’s wedding. Brother, sister, good friend’s I grew up with. In fact, I’ve never been to a wedding, except my own which was a very small court house affair.
I’m 53 and most of the weddings I attended were as a young child, when (younger than my parents) aunts and uncles and older cousins were getting the nuptial knots tied.
My peer group though was a bit reluctant to get married at all, and preferred ‘living in sin’ so to speak! So, between the age of 20 until about 45, I think I was invited to a total of seven weddings. Three were my immediate family (mother and two sisters) and four were friends of varying degree of acquaintanceship.
Thus, I don’t think it’s unusual to have only been invited to two weddings…unless word has got out that you like to dance nude to the Wedding Waltz, and drink all the spirits at the open bar! If that’s the case then bwahahahahaha.
I haven’t been to many. The last was a co-worker in 2009. I have too many cousins so mostly we don’t invite each other to our weddings. It gets too big. One of my close friends married in a registry office. Another got married out of the area and I couldn’t travel there. But I really haven’t been invited to many… I guess I have a small circle of friends who don’t often get married.
Don’t wish for things you can’t take back! Weddings are also usually seasonal, so they come in droves. I think I’ve been to maybe 8 or so since 2007 (the earliest one I can remember. It was on my birthday, not intentionally, so that sticks out). They’ve all been my gf’s friends, mutual friends, or family. I don’t know many other people who got married.
Are you male? Have you been dating someone(s) who are good at keeping in touch with old friends?
Or you have a few friends who are crappy in relationships and have had multiple marriages :dubious:
I am 60. Outside of family weddings, I’ve been invited to 2. One was a friend’s wedding, the other was the daughter of a friend. The only wedding I was in (not mine, since we eloped) was as junior bridesmaid for a cousin when I was about 9 or 10. I did a reading for one of my sisters, sang for another sister, and didn’t go to the wedding of the 3rd because it had been canceled, then rescheduled and I just couldn’t go.
I don’t like showers. I don’t much like weddings. If I never see people doing the Chicken Dance again, I can die happy.
I’ve been to more weddings than I can even count up (not to mention the fact, that I have had to reply with regrets on several invitations, because the wedding was too far away, or something), and only about half have been family members. Now, my extended family is really good at staying in touch, so it’s not surprising that I’ve been to the wedding of my second cousin, or my brother’s wife’s brother. As for the rest, I am not that popular-- my husband and I have kind of a small social circle, and I’m not known for being extroverted. So, I can’t tell you why I get invited to a lot of weddings, other than, pretty much, I’ve lived in just two places, although I’ve drifted back and forth, so I’m in touch with lots of people that I’ve known my whole life. I think some people find something sort of cozy, or comforting, in inviting people that they’ve known a long time-- like if you have managed to maintain acquaintances over a long time, it bodes well for maintaining a marriage.
Then, I’ve always been a synagogue service goer, and a lot of people at shuls I’ve belonged to invite the core minyan, even if they don’t know the people well outside service-going. Maybe they want to make sure there will be people there who read Hebrew well, or maybe if they are getting married in the synagogue, they want the faces they are used to seeing there, but I have been to several wedding of fellow congregants who were just that.
There may be another reason. I have a reputation for not breaking engagements, and showing up on time. I’m sure some people have a little bit of a “what if I gave a party and no one came?” jitters about the wedding and reception. I’m the sort of person who responds to an invitation immediately, and then shows up if I say I will, on time. Maybe that has nothing to do with it, but I also get invited to a lot of receptions, bar mitzvahs, and other things where I think that other people who maybe know the guest of honor a little better weren’t there, so I have to wonder.
So the OP has 2 HS friend weddings and 1 family wedding? I’d say that’s about par for the course for most people but as you (the OP) admits the real reason is because of the lack of college friends’ weddings. If you remove that component I think 3 is within tolerance on the bell curve of wedding invites. Add in 2-5 college weddings and you’d be at or probably above the average number of weddings a person attends.
Gone to two weddings in the last 30-something years. A complete waste, neither lasted at all long.
Been invited in that span to 3 others, but on the other side of the country so easily avoided. (And one of those is already a waste. Think the most recent one is going to also be a waste in very little time.)
Sure I’m older, but in recent years they’ve been for the next generation below. Luckily, most people in my age group have wised up and don’t do big weddings so fewer chances there.
