Raging, Ranting, Raving, and Rhapsodizing

Those of you who are married, have been married, or are getting married probably have a good idea about how much work it takes to plan a wedding; the details, the forgotten till' the last minute things, the people, the place, etc. And if you have any shred of common sense, you know it's important to know more about your future spouse than their middle name and favorite color.

My friend Mel doesn't think so. Mel's been my best friend since high school, and we've always been polar opposites. She's quiet, I'm loud. She's shy, I'm vehemently opinionated. Mel is typically described as "wise" and "grounded". I've often been described as "flighty", "flaky", and "irresponsible". That's a whole different subject, though. It seems that in the last few months, the tables have turned. I have become the grounded one. Mel is suddenly making the flippant commitments and forgetting everything.

You see, Mel started dating her karate instructor (sensei) about 3 months ago and got engaged to him about 5 weeks ago. This is fast, but not necessarily unreasonable. The problem is that they're getting married on Saturday. 2 days from today. Basically, they've thrown this together in a month and everything is last minute and crazy.

Try to wrap your minds around this: Mel is having a karate themed wedding which will feature a food fight and possibly a paintball game at the reception. I, as a bridesmaid *get to* wear a karate uniform (gi) in the wedding. (She's a bridesmaid in my wedding, but she's not girly, so I knew she would grudgingly buy a dress and wear it. She asked my opinion on the gi thing, and when I told her I wasn't crazy about the idea, she said "Well, I'm not crazy about wearing a dress..." I'm confused about whether this is a valid point or pure neurotic rationale.)

I just got my invitation a little over a week ago. She forgot to invite my parents and asked me to pass along our invitation. (note on the invites: they were going to be teenage mutant ninja turtles but the store was out) It didn't occur to Mel to have a rehearsal till I asked her what time it was at (assume makes an ASS of U and ME).

Stephen commented "Are we going to a wedding or a 4-year-old's birthday party?"

That's really the question of the hour. I honestly don't care that much about the bizarre details (it's just not my style), but I don't see any of her trademark wisdom of maturity in this process. I guess now I know what all my friends and family feel like. But in the end, I love Mel and I know that when marriage turns out to be harder than she thought, she'll need people to support her and not say "I told you" like I know the little devil in me will undoubtedly long to do. Oh, to be right. Oooh, to do the right thing. This will be a long weekend.