Most of the weddings I've been to are family, so. The two that weren't: one I was the maid of honor and only knew the bride, but that was fine as I was staying with them anyway, and y'know maid of honor. I was busy. Or drunk enough I didn't care (which sounds bad, but we all were.) The other, I knew people from work, but they barely qualify as acquaintances. So I kinda made friends with the groom's best friend who also knew no one else there.

Shrift--lessen the load on the rod today and go shopping this week for a replacement. IME, once a rod starts slipping, it had gone to the dark side and is always plotting against you.

Weddings are expensive but it wasn't the plus-ones that ran up the cost so much as the people you had to invite for obscure family or work obligations.

Anyway, we definitely allowed guests for anybody who was single.

There have been a few times when someone has said to me "hey, can you make sure that so and so gets introduced around?" and I have drawn them into conversation, bought them shots, whatever :) (and by "bought" I mean went to the open bar and picked them up)

Ooooh, we've got a thunderstorm blowing in here. I hope the guys working on the front of my building are smart enough to get everything under cover. I don't need to add to my Moneyed Class Guilt by getting a worker killed in by lightning.

I swear when in Texas that we got some invitations to JUST the wedding - like big church wedding, much smaller reception - common?

Mostly, I've seen where people are invited to the whole shebang, but then others may be informally invited to the wedding ceremony.

Though once I was invited to a recoption only. And My friends got married in a small country church that only sat 40, so there were some neighbors who were only invited to the reception.

Someone in my office was talking about credit cards and said "It's not Visa, there should be only one." They seem to think that MasterCard is some obscure type of credit card. Not the point, the point is that I cracked myself up by saying "This is not Highlander the credit card". FTR, still neither a geek nor a nerd.

the point is that I cracked myself up by saying "This is not Highlander the credit card". FTR, still neither a geek nor a nerd.

Whatever you gotta tell yourself...

Though once I was invited to a recoption only. And My friends got married in a small country church that only sat 40, so there were some neighbors who were only invited to the reception.

I've found this common too. Smaller formal wedding. Large shindig/hootenanny reception.

Put the single people together at a table, so they have someone to talk to.

My HMO doesn't cover the number of therapy visits it would take to mitigate the trauma I'd experience from this.

Admittedly, I'm a reclusive misanthropic freak, so I'm not the best person to have at a social event like a wedding reception anyway.

My only sane post-college roommate was a girl who I met when I -- in a TOTAL departure from my misanthropic ways -- joined a volleyball team all by myself. I didn't know a soul on the team, and while it was mostly awkward, sometimes it was fun, and I got along really well with Molly. When I mentioned that my insane roommate was moving out and I was going nuts trying to find an affordable 1-bedroom in a not-scary part of town, Molly said that she was about to look for a new place, too.

And while it could have been all Single White Female, she was actually the best roommate I ever had. But even though we had parties at least once a month, I never became actual *friends* with her friends; although the parties were fun, it was clear that they were Molly's friends and just my acquaintances.

When Molly got married, she invited me to the wedding (with a +1), and I had NO ONE to take with me. So I went by myself, and endured one of the more excruciatingly painful evenings of my life. And when I tried to leave the reception after waiting 45 minutes or so after dinner and cake were over, instead of letting me gracefully slink out the door, Molly kept making a big deal out of it: WHY did I have to go NOW??? Didn't I want to stay and DANCE????

(Yes, she's the bride, and it was her special day, so I was tolerant of her attempts to get me to stay, but I held fast and booked it out of there before the dancing started. I think it was when she said "Oh, but [names of her other single friends who I knew tangentially] will dance with you!!! It'll be FUN!!!!" and those aforementioned tangental friends looked at me with dead-eyed panic that I knew I had to leave, even if it involved breaking one of my own limbs in order to get hauled off to the hospital -- anything to get out of there before the goddamned Electric Slide started.)

(Seriously, y'all, I am SO MUCH FUN.)