A nice bottle of Glenfiddich for the flask, I think

I think some people get married for the wrong reasons. (Note to the four known married people who read this blog --your respective weddings and/or Seattle celebration dinners rank in my Top Five Most Fun Weddings Ever. I don't mean you.) Namely, I think some people get married because they think they "should" -- based on how old they are or what their careers are or what they think will bring them "stability" or "respectability" or whatever else they think is "expected" of them.

Am a bit agitated about the idea of marriage because a few more things have emerged about my sister's wedding, which will be in a week:

• They don't know what their vows will be; they plan on repeating whatever the minister tells them, and may not even practice at the rehearsal. They could potentially hear them for the first time at the altar.

• There's no plan for the reception. My other sister and I were aghast when we found out and had to sketch out a suggested timeline (as in, if the room is only reserved from 1-7 p.m., designate an emcee or DJ now, have the bridal party announced at 1:30, lunch served at 2:00, speeches at 2:30, first dance at 3:00, etc. They hadn't even thought about any of this yet....!)
  
  
• They haven't seen the decorations. A lady from their church is taking care of it all, but hasn't shared her vision for the "look."
  
  
• We might have to dance to Michael W. Smith or Avalon. The bride loves to groove privately to hip-hop, Latin pop, and R&B, but doesn't want to have "questionable" lyrics at the wedding for the teenagers in her youth group (or her new in-laws the ministers) to hear. Putting aside the inherent hypocrisy in this, the other sister and I figured out that this means we should make the DJ playlists with a ton of Spanish techno, pop, and hip-hop. Because if nobody understands the lyrics, does it really matter what's in them? (If a tree falls in a ...) My bro-in-law will be the only native Spanish speaker there, and he's cool with the plan so he won't be scandalized. We don't really want to dance to Michael W. Smith or Avalon. And neither does the bride, who's too timid to stand up and assert herself and dance to the music she dances to at home.
  
  
• The lechón has not yet been ordered. It's not like it's a side salad! Caterers need at least two weeks to get a roasted pig!
  
  
• There won't be a rehearsal dinner after all because culturally, the groom's side doesn't exclude people for food, so saying "Sorry, just immediate family and the bridal party" is unheard of. And "family" means "village," which Mom won't pay for and the bride refuses to delicately ask to pay for themselves.
  

But hey, there's a Hummer limo. And "Bless the Broken Road."

Women in my family tend to be very stubborn, opinionated, and loud. =) My mother threw up her hands tonight and said (for the millionth time) that she's giving up and just stepping back from the whole thing.

Here's my theory, which I've told to both sisters and my mother. One sister (happens to be the youngest and arguably the most mature of the three of us) got married first, waited a bit, then got pregnant. The next sister saw everybody go ga-ga over the picture-perfect dream wedding (and now new baby) and wants that for herself, started dating the first available guy at her church a few weeks afterwards, and then five months later suddenly becomes engaged and wants to get married within four months. In the back of her mind, she knows it took a year and a half to plan the other wedding, and that the future neice/nephew's birth was planned, but she also just turned 26 and thinks she's running out of time.

It'll all go well in the end, I'm sure. We'll have fun. As long as there's smuggled whisky and Thalía remixes...