Arndts (Safe at Home) 7: Waiting on Wedding Photos

[GreenBeans]

I’m so glad I don’t have lots of friends with stereotypical lives! Many aren’t married at all, some got married in a courthouse wedding with only parents/siblings attending, only very few had the typical big hoopla around 30.

One of my younger colleagues and his girlfriend are currently at that age where “everyone” seems to be getting married (for our circles, that’s early 30s). He’s had to use up so much of his vacation days just to go and attend weddings of his and his girlfriend’s friends!

So many people seem to be doing bachelor/bachelorette parties at some destination, and people have moved a lot for work, so will have to travel back home or somewhere else across the country to attend a wedding. So he basically ended up having to use at least 2 vacation days per wedding - one for the bachelor party (often Friday or Saturday but at a different place), another for the wedding (again, if you have to travel and the ceremony is Saturday morning, you have to leave Friday). Between May and October of last year and this year, he’s been off to attend a wedding or bachelor party every other weekend. It’s ridiculous!

 

[Angelface]

This happened to one of my brothers. He hired a morning suit, top hat etc so many times one summer that it would have been better to have bought the full outfit in the first place! He was best man or an usher at five weddings that summer and his fiancée borrowed hats from all her friends. Wedding hats are expensive. 

[GreenBeans]

56 minutes ago, Angelface said:

This happened to one of my brothers. He hired a morning suit, top hat etc so many times one summer that it would have been better to have bought the full outfit in the first place!

Here, if you are only a “normal” guest, you have to dress elegantly, but not over the top for most weddings. Men should typically wear a suit, women a dress, but there is generally no color theme (we don’t really have a wedding party and bridesmaids / groomsmen here), so you don’t really need to buy clothes to attend a wedding.

I did have a colleague at work once who went a bit over the top. For some reason she thought she couldn’t wear the same dress twice when people had seen her wear it before at a wedding. So the year when lots of her friends were getting married, she literally bought a new dress for each wedding she attended as a guest. I thought she was nuts. 😂

What’s really costly is the traveling and hotel costs! When your circle of friends is spread out across the country (because both you and they have moved around, you have some friends from school, others from university etc…), having to buy gas or train tickets and a hotel room on top of the wedding gift (which is typically just money here) means you end up paying several hundred Euros just to attend a wedding. Even more when there’s a bachelor/bachelorette party you have to travel to attend.

I guess fundies often stay in the area they grew up in, or they tend to just stay with family or in a camper when they got to attend a wedding. 

What do you give as wedding gifts in the US? The last wedding I attended here (Germany) was several years ago and I think my husband and I gifted something like 100 EUR (~110 USD). I think it’s probably more now, but also varies between how close you are to the bride and groom and how well off you are. I’ve never gifted anything other than money, it’s the norm here.

I’ve never seen a wedding with a registry here, either. Every couple I know that got married has already lived together for years, so they didn’t need any household goods. I know some who wished for something unnecessary-but-expensive from their parents or in-laws (e.g. an expensive barbecue grill), but other than that everyone preferred money. Many used that money to either pay for the wedding or their honeymoon.

[GuineaPigCourtship]

I think gifts vary a LOT based on relationship to the couple, the givers' income, and formality of the wedding.  I think the general saying is you should gift enough to cover your plate, but I've never worried much about that.

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, GuineaPigCourtship said:

I think gifts vary a LOT based on relationship to the couple, the givers' income, and formality of the wedding.  I think the general saying is you should gift enough to cover your plate, but I've never worried much about that.

Gift giving can be stressful in general. I've been invited to a coworker's son's birthday. I know there will be a number of mutual coworkers there. I was so stressed about the gift! I decided I needed to stay within my budget and not worry about what my other coworkers are buying for him. But it's so easy to overthink gift buying for someone I don't know well but feel obligated to buy for!

[xenobia]

So when is the next Arndt wedding, and who's up? 

[justmy2cents]

5 hours ago, xenobia said:

So when is the next Arndt wedding, and who's up? 

Joan Philip / Jacob Arndt 8/31/24

Aynur Aliyeva / Philip Arndt 9/22/24

 

[mango_fandango]

In the last few years, a number of people I knew at school and university have gotten engaged and married. One got married last summer and had her first baby two months ago. She's also the only one (that I know of, anyway) who owns a house with her husband, they bought it about three years ago (she mentioned it on FB). Given that I'm single and always have been (never had a boyfriend or dated or kissed or anything like that), I do struggle sometimes with feeling like I'm being left behind. After all, I would like kids one day, and I only have a relatively limited time frame in which to do so. It's not that I'm super picky or anything, I just really struggle with anxiety. Hopefully I'll find a lovely, caring guy some day. At least I'm not a fundie SAHD! I can work outside the home and get proper, legit counselling rather than just "praying it away". 

[Expectopatronus]

@mango_fandango I’m pretty similar to you. I’ve dated a few guys that friends set me up with but I have never had a long term relationship. I oscillate between being okay with that and being sad that I don’t have a partner to do things with, to travel and to talk. I made the decision to become a parent so that I wouldn’t miss out on my deepest longing to be a mother but I would have preferred to be raising my girl with a husband. I can’t help but feel that there is something wrong with me but I am also grateful that I get to have a career and thanks to embryo adoption, I get to parent a ball of energy who calls me mommy. Unlike fundie maidens who are stuck at home, my life is full and pretty good. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Family picture from the last wedding.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

5 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Family picture from the last wedding.

Who's missing from the picture? 

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Who's missing from the picture? 

All the boys and Wizzy are there. But Philip’s fiancé isn’t in the pic. Maybe she hasn’t come to the US yet? Their relationship is so strange to me. 

[AnywhereButHere]

Husband called me at work today after receiving a mystery package. He hates feet, all feet, including his own, so wanted to know why in god’s name I would send him something from John’s Crazy Socks. Given that I did not send him anything, I wanted to know as well. Turns out that they were a “thank you for your business” gift from the company that just installed our A/C, and now husband wants to know what the hell he’s supposed to do with two pairs of novelty socks. My “Well… there are a couple of weddings coming up where they may be gifted” did not help the confusion. 

 

Edited August 16 by AnywhereButHere

[QuiverFullofBooks]

We can't see what Cathy's wearing, so I'm going to pretend she wore her white shorts.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I bet this first girl since Wizzy will get a ton of attention. I bet they are calling and texting them all the time about the baby. 

[MariaariaM]

Anna is the first grandkid, right? That's always big. I'm sure her second x-chromosome adds to the excitement and they would've worded things differently if she'd been a boy but there would've been a bit of craziness either way.

[Giraffe]

That picture spiked my anxiety. I can't imagine being medical staff in that situation. I'd be kicking people out left and right! 

[JermajestyDuggar]

23 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

That picture spiked my anxiety. I can't imagine being medical staff in that situation. I'd be kicking people out left and right! 

I had my kids pre Covid and I never had that many people in the hospital visit me. I can’t imagine. 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

We had no one in to visit because we had our daughter during covid and it was lovely!  She was a csection so it was just my husband and I in our own cozy world for a few days - the nurses pretty much left us alone most of the time to bond.

[LurkerOverThePond]

On 8/21/2024 at 2:02 AM, QuiverFullofBooks said:

We can't see what Cathy's wearing, so I'm going to pretend she wore her white shorts.

Actually, she DID based on Famteam's IG post.

[JermajestyDuggar]

51 minutes ago, LurkerOverThePond said:

Actually, she DID based on Famteam's IG post.

I always imagine her closet with 21 pairs of white shorts that all look exactly alike hung up in a row. 

[Howl]

Just a reminder how bizarrely off the charts crazy, wacky, insanely odd this family is.  A housefull of over a dozen unmarried chidult men, and then the floodgates open and they are getting married at an insane rate. 

Were these women waiting in the wings all along?  Are these arranged marriages? Is there a matchmaker involved? I mean, people, WTAF?  WTAGDF?

Did one of the brothers discover that one can have sex when married, and then everybody got really excited that they, too, could have sex with a woman, and then like, WHOA, let's all get married.  

This. Is. Nuts.  It's not normal. 

[Sk8ter]

What is with this family an always having their hands on each other's bellies??? (First Mama Arndt and the bedroom birthday photos and now all these boys uncomfortably grabbing around their spouse's belly?) It's so weird. They're like 12 year olds

[JermajestyDuggar]

They already got a baby crib for their house. I bet they are already pestering them to bring Anna over so they can babysit. I want to add that I understand her white shorts. She has lovely legs so I say show them off. 

I think they are having Jacob’s wedding at the Arndt house because they are building a dance floor put back on the property. 

[Howl]

On 8/20/2024 at 5:02 PM, QuiverFullofBooks said:

We can't see what Cathy's wearing, so I'm going to pretend she wore her white shorts.

I wonder if she gives each of the new DiL's a pair of white shorts as a sort of "Welcome to the family!"