One of my biggest pet peeves is people who complain about something they already agreed to do. “Ugh, I’m so annoyed, I have to pick up my friend from the airport.” Well, you don’t HAVE to. You agreed to because you’re a good friend and presumably you like the person enough that you want to make their arrival into town a little smoother (and cheaper). You weighed the cost of the annoyance against the happiness it would bring the other person and you decided the annoyance weighed less. It’s totally fair to still feel annoyed about driving all the way to the airport, but don’t tell everyone you know about it.

I try very hard not to complain about the time and the money I spend going to weddings. If I didn’t have the time or the money, I could always say no, right? That said, some grumbling does get through from time to time, which I am now of course expressing in a more positive creative fashion.

Anyway – the big reason I always say yes when invited to people’s weddings is that I have never once regretted going. For all my sarcastic talk about ridiculous things that happen at weddings, I have truly loved being present for one of the most important days in my friends’ lives.

Back when I was 22, working crazy hours for no pay, I didn’t have this understanding yet, so when my new friends Kassie and Cameron invited me to their wedding in Mexico, I made the disappointing mistake of saying no.

To be fair, their wedding was somewhere that involved taking two different flights and then riding a burro up a mountain (maybe not the burro part…) which was a) expensive b) meant I’d have to take extra time off of work and c) terrifying (what if I’m allergic to burros?).

That said? I still really wish I had gone. I’m close friends with K&C to this day and from time to time someone will mention something that went on at the wedding and I’ll feel bummed. I never feel bummed about having attended a wedding. I do feel really bummed about not having a crazy story about the flatulent burro in front of me the entire way up the mountain or about the cute waiter at the reception who murmured sweet nothings in Spanish to me all night long. Because both of those things would have happened had I sucked it up and gone.

So yes, I will happily come to your wedding. I promise to keep any and all complaints to myself. Er, and this blog.