My academic department took me out to dinner (at a great place - the Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse)

Yum yum YUM.

Thus have I spake, and I had a big ol' schmancy church wedding with a total wedding party (including myself and Hec) of 14, and we did it without the crazy drama and without sending all our attendants to the poorhouse.

Except that our wedding party was 8 (3 attendants each), and there was no church, this is me.

Okay, and now Jess. Clearly Buffista weddings are superior.

We had 1 attendant each, my MiL made the bouquets, my shower was a lingerie one, and it was "girl's night out" instead of a bachelorette (didn't stop me from getting drunk, but we didn't do any of the cringe-inducing things. Just dinner and dancing). The only stress involved was my mother being CRAXY, but that was induced by her less-than-stellar home life and the recent death of a friend. No one was expected to spend *anything* except gas to get to the two locations. I just wanted my peeps near me, and that I got. It was good.

I liked the two times I was a bridesmaid. Of course, it didn't cost me anything other than my plane ticket to Vancouver for the one (which, really, same cost as if I wasn't the chief bridesmaid). I'm still agog at the whole expense incurring thing. If it weren't for the interweb, I wouldn't know that it was standard for it to cost the maids money. At least the groomsmen get lapdances, you know?

I love this headline: Universe 'too queer' to grasp

Cool article too.

Professor Dawkins, the renowned Selfish Gene author from Oxford University, said we were living in a "middle world" reality that we have created.

...

Professor Dawkins' opening talk, in a session called Meme Power, explored the ways in which humans invent their own realities to make sense of the infinitely complex worlds they are in; worlds made more complex by ideas such as quantum physics which is beyond most human understanding.

"Are there things about the Universe that will be forever beyond our grasp, in principle, ungraspable in any mind, however superior?" he asked.

"Successive generations have come to terms with the increasing queerness of the Universe."

Each species, in fact, has a different "reality". They work with different "software" to make them feel comfortable, he suggested.

Because different species live in different models of the world, there was a discomfiting variety of real worlds, he suggested.

"Middle world is like the narrow range of the electromagnetic spectrum that we see," he said.

"Middle world is the narrow range of reality that we judge to be normal as opposed to the queerness that we judge to be very small or very large."

Electronic paper.

"Are there things about the Universe that will be forever beyond our grasp, in principle, ungraspable in any mind, however superior?"

I'm totally down with this idea.

I realize I'm outside the norm, but I don't want to spend ridiculous amounts of money to be decorative; neither to I want to spend ridiculous amounts of money to be the (non)hired help.

Dude, not outside the norm. Sane. But then, I am the wedding-hatin'-est newly-married-person ever. I can't even bring myself to say bride.

Um, brides do not get to point at people and say "You are throwing me a shower and this is who you invite and this is how much you spend". That much I'm sure of.

I didn't have any showers either, though, so maybe I should have done more pointing. (kidding, I had a Bachelorette party that consisted of bar hopping in the French Quarter that was what I wanted, a shower would have been complicated and probably not fun, I don't need a toilet paper dress). I did make my bridesmaids buy a dress (The rest of this post keep sgetting eaten, I will take it as a sign)

If I had ever been in a wedding like yours, I might not have such a dim view of The Lost Art of Bridesmaiding.

Did I mention that the bridesmaids' gifts included flasks? Each one different - a sterling silver Celtic knot flask, a Charles Rennie Macintosh flask from England, a flask with a picture of Curious George all stoned on ether, one I can't remember anymore, and a flask with Rush album cover art (the bridesmaid who got that one called me up in tears to thank me, she was so touched). I'm still bummed that I didn't have my shit together enough to buy a bunch of bottles of nifty stuff and fill each flask with the perfect appropriate liqueur, but, given that I was still assembling CD covers on the morning of the wedding, it was clearly not to be.

Also, one shower gift per bridesmaid, and those who couldn't come to any showers were expressly ordered not to give me any gifts. Ditto those who lived far away and were thus making their attendance the gift. Also, I paid for one girl's dress, helped with another's, and found a third's on eBay for 75% off retail.

It's really not that hard. If what matters to you is the marriage itself, and having your friends there and participating in that union alongside you, you treat them decently and don't make it a hardship for them. It is just so very much NOT THAT HARD. I don't get people, I really don't.