Reply to Is there an age where the whole wedding thing needs to chill?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As someone whose friends mostly married young, I kind of resent this. I shelled out for their weddings, why shouldn’t they return the favor if I asked? It’s kind of unfair to put an arbitrary limit on her wedding fun to justify your lack of interest. [/quote]

+1. I am in my early 30s and not yet married, but a lot of my friends got married young and had huge festivities. I showed up to EVERY one with a smile even if I couldn’t really afford it or had other things going on. Based on the attitudes I frequently see here, I’d be screwed if I did want them all to celebrate me in a similar manner. I get that life isn’t “fair” but to not show up for your good friends or to complain in the petty manner OP has here is really crappy IMO. [/quote]

I think it's not that you're screwed if you want your friends to celebrate with you. I think it's that - I think? - expectations and preferences tend to change as you get older. I was never a get dressed up and party all night type of person, in my 20s or now. But I literally cannot stay awake until 3am the way I could when I was younger anymore. I also am not willing to drink myself into a headache anymore. I didn't ask anyone to do these things with me before my own wedding - in my late 30s - and my friends tended not to be the types who would do this anyway. But I absolutely would be the no fun person if I were asked or expected to show up for that kind of party now.

Maybe the thing is that you just have to be sensitive to the actual people you're actually asking to be part of your celebration. If they are the types who are eager to get away to Vegas for a weekend, go for it. If they've mellowed into being the types who'd rather go to Portland, Maine, for wine and lobster for a weekend, maybe do that instead. I think it's just a little silly to demand that everything be even steven with no regard to how people's lives - and bodies! - have changed.[/quote]

This this this. I don't think the OP is saying she wants the friend to not celebrate her own wedding. But there seems to be a literal tit-for-tat at work here. We went clubbing for all of these parties, and now we go clubbing now. When ten years have passed and maybe splashing out means reading the room and going to the spa or to a tasting menu or out to a concert or for heavens sake we've gotten some sense since we were 24 and we'll leave the penis' at home. I think there is a lot of sense of thinking about what you really like and what you friends like and doing that. I don't know if we need to take shots now just bc we took shots ten years ago. [/quote]

But OP is basically saying that she doesn’t want the friend to celebrate her wedding. She literally wrote that she would rather be in bed.

I don’t see it as anyone trying to be tit-for-tat. Just as much as you are saying the bride should consider the ages and attitudes of who is invited, friends should do their very best to meet her where she is. If this is what she wants, then you suck it up because a lot of people presumably did it for OP. And you don’t complain about it or act like you’re more “mature” or “advanced” or whatever because you’re in a different place in life. [/quote]

That's not how I read OP. I read OP as saying that this debaucherous celebration is making her feel exhausted. It's possible that even a weekend in Portland would make her exhausted (it's still travel, it's still not down time, there's probably still plastic penises around there somewhere). I'm guessing it's probably the prospect of having to be "on" for that sort of event that is preemptively wearing her out, though.

OP seems to be feeling a little exasperated that even after her peer group has matured into young middle age, they are still having to go through a young person's rituals, and that no longer feels fun. [/quote]

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