h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have become perplexed of late at people and their weddings. When did it become tradition to torture guests?
I went to a wedding last month. The groom was late, hence the wedding started 20 minutes late. I arrived 20 minutes early, so I had already been waiting for 40 minutes while trying to keep my 7 year-old quiet and occupied.
The bride had chosen 8, yes 8, songs to play during the wedding. Each one was at least 3 minutes long, and were very secular to be playing at the church. (read here loud heavy guitar and sexually suggestive lyrics) Because of this, my church has instituted new rules about the music that can be played during the ceremony. During each song, there was an ackward pause where the wedding party just stood and stared at each other. The only advantage to this was you couldn't here all the babies crying from sheer boredom and torture.
Then, the wedding party preceded to take pictures after the ceremony for around 45 minutes. Everyone was supposed to drive to a location the bride and groom had chosen to have the reception at (which was a 45 minute drive, also). Upon arriving, the guests were supposed to have drinks and dinner while waiting for the bride and groom, but the bride changed her mind and the last minute. She called the caterer at the last minute and told them not to serve till they arrived. They didn't hire anyone to serve the alcohol, so somebody's cousin's mother's boyfriend rolled up his sleeves and gave it a run till he got tired about 15 minutes later. So after that, you just got up and got it yourself.
So, the bride and groom arrived at the reception 1 hour and 30 minutes after the wedding was over. Cold food was then served. Over 1/2 the guests had already left, and the bride's mother had the gall to complain to me about paying for all that uneaten food and finding out who was her "real friends".
Then, the groom's family proceded to beat on their glasses once a minute till the bride and groom kissed, which became very annoying after the 30th time!
For whoever is getting married soon, it is not just your day. Don't expect to torture people and them be happy about it!

Ouch! Fortunately, we took time into account quite early on - my mother-in-law-to-be can't stand for long periods of time and my fiancee has M.E. So for one thing the wedding and reception are all in one place, for another, the ceremony itself is nice and short. We have a couple of songs that a friend of ours is singing, but they're short and she's a trained opera singer so at least people can enjoy them!

It's quite a simple statement that we want to make - we decided 18 months ago that we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives, and at that point the word "marriage" was just funny We'd like our friends and family to join us in celebrating our love for each other. It's not just our celebration, we're asking them to join in and we can't do that if the people have to spend the day waiting for us!

What is M.E.?
That's cute if you think about it. My fiancee has me!

M.E. = Myalgic Encephalomyelitis

Unfortunately, it's not cute (though my fiancée is )

See http://www.afme.org.uk/whatisme.shtml for more details. Maybe I'll get her to write an entry on it sometime...

I'll be sure to check out that website and get back to you.

The "what is M.E.?" page is down, but if you put M.E. into the UK version of Google, you should find enough sites which explain it. I suggest "Axford's Abode"

and "Mechat eXtra site" (by ME Chat members): http://www.mechat.co.uk

My partner has M.E. and it makes keeping any appointment, er, challenging (well to be honest, bleedin' difficult) as the condition is prone to worsening suddenly.

To put the experience of M.E. into non-medical terms, imagine a brand new car which looks perfect, and is more or less in perfect working order. The car has a battery which can't hold its charge, but it's in a country where there are no battery chargers, nothing to test the charge of a battery with, no replacement car batteries, and where expert car mechanics even dispute the existence of faulty car batteries.