Invitations - Just a Story

You used to choose your wedding invitations from a wide variety put into a book of choices. While I love weddings and I love choices, when it came time for my wedding I just wanted to fast forward to married. I didn't want to plan and make decisions. I wanted to be married.

So, when my mother and her wedding planner friend came at my groom and me with not just one but three giant books of invitation choices to look through, I almost cried. Now, let me help you picture this. Here sit my groom and I—anxious to be married—and after 2 hours of planning and questions about what we want for the wedding plans my mother smiles and eagerly tells me it's time to look at the invitations. I agree and out they come. Three books! Dare I call them that? They were binder-type books about 5 inches thick, each page held two choices.

“Ugh!” I sighed. My mother beamed. My groom, to his credit, patiently sat and waited for his job to be assigned.

"Let's start looking and see what we like," Mom began.

"Oh Mom! There's too many, just pick the cheapest one."

"Come on, Ann. This is fun. You can have whatever one you want."

"But I don't care. You just pick."

"You really can have whichever you want. Which do you want?" asks my groom.

"Just pick what's cheapest. I don't care." I answer.

He stops, looks me in the eye and says, "You're not just being nice, you really don't care?"

"I really don't care." My groom, who my mother adores almost more than she loves me, asks my mother to narrow it down to two and then we'll choose. I of course find this idea brilliant, and not just because my kissy-smooch of a fiancé thought it up.

So my mother narrows down the choices and shows us the final two. "Which do you want?"

Now, in my head I'm thinking, ‘I don't care! They're very similar and both beautiful so either is great.’ But, I know any further lack of decision-making may result in my mother's transformation into a bride eating beast. So, I dutifully choose one. To which my mother replies, "Really?" in that tone. I know you know the tone. You've heard it in your own mother's voice when she asks if you're "really going out like that?"

So she tilts her head and says in her mommy tone, "Really?"

We went with the other invitation.

And they were beautiful. Thanks Mom!