I had to explain the purpose of wedding invitations to my intended yesterday.

Yes. You read that right. Explain the purpose of invitations.

See, she's got a bunch of relatives that would like to see this whole marriage thing happen. I have no problems with this. In fact, I'm perfectly content to have them show up, if they're able to make it to the ceremony. So, she's been calling them to let them know what's going on, and asking if they'd like to attend. And she's been getting perplexed over why people aren't just saying that yes, they will be there, when she cannot hand off a date, time, and location. She's just so damn excited that she doesn't see the need to send anything anywhere.

So we had to have a nice conversation about why we need to send these things out.

Me: "See, here's the thing. They can't commit to taking time off from work if they have to to travel, or..."

Her: "But it's our wedding!"

Me: "I get that. But baby, you've been on disability your entire life. You don't know how it works with putting in a time off request at work."

Her: "But wouldn't that be easy?"

Me: *looking at ceiling* "Not always, no. Especially not if this is something where they need to find...y'know, nevermind about how this works. It just isn't as easy as saying you need the day and running off. They need the warning."

Her: "Oh. But...wait. Wait. How come we need to tell them this stuff so far in advance?"

Me: "...because some folks need to travel from upwards of three hours away in province, and then there's your relatives in frickin' CALGARY that are going to need to book flights if they want to come out here for this."

Her: "...uhm. So. We have to figure out a date and a time? We already have a location, though!"

Me: "Yes. We do. But we don't have a date and time. And I need you to give me a guest list so I know how many invitations I'm going to need to deal with sending out, since you agreed to let me handle this."

Her: "Errrmmm..."

Me: *siiiiigh*

I'm pretty sure that by the end of this whole thing with invitations and such? I'm going to let out a scream that makes me sound oddly like Howard Dean. My dad's already laughing over the fact that he can mention certain aspects of getting married, and I start twitching while sputtering things out that aren't even coherent, because it's just one more thing I'm going to have to start screwing around with.

Like the whole catering thing he dropped on me the other day. We want a BBQ after the ceremony, back at her parents' house, if at all possible. Standard fare. Hot dogs, burgers, maybe some chicken, chips, salad, beer, ect. Nothing that's going to absolutely bankrupt us. Dad proceeds to inform me that it might be good to have someone hired out to do the cooking, so he and my intended's father don't have to man the grill all day. So now that's yet more money we have to figure on needing, and I get to spent time calling around to different places in North Bay to see if caterers will even do this sort of thing without requiring other stuff we really don't need. I'm half tempted to say that I'll change out of my ceremony attire into a pair of shorts and a tshirt so I can stand there manning the grill myself if it'll make a difference. Just give me a cigarette, a bottle of beer, and the grill tongs, then get the hell out of my way.

But noooooo...it has to be complicated.

I think I'm going to go back to nosing through invitation designs and whatnot. I can't possibly afford half of the stuff I'm seeing, but hey. It's pretty.