Thursday, 3 May 2007

A big fat greek wedding

I'm a man involved (perhaps not as much as I should be) in the planning of a wedding. My contributions to the planning of this event have, so far, been fairly theoretical and I am working towards making a more tangible/valuable contribution.

Now choosing your wedding guests is a challenging tasks. I had a conversation with one of my friends who is soon to be married where he raised the often-thought-never-asked question, "Is it wrong to drop your cousins from your guest list in favour of your mates?" I pondered and answered and the conversation carried on. But it nonetheless got me thinking about the guest subject and in keeping with my theoretical planning led me to ask questions such as "How many spaces should be left for people we don't yet know?" I don't have an answer to this mainly because we don't know who we don't know and therefore don't know who they might be or how many of them there might be. As you can see this kind of thinking doesn't get anything done.

When I am in Cologne I do most of my travelling around in a taxi to and from the airport and normally to and from the office. We have an agreement with a local taxi firm and as a result we see the same drivers most of the time. They are our friends. A friendship based on the fact that once a week someone in our team has to hand over a credit card and pay a fairly hefty taxi bill.

This morning in the taxi with the usual taxi driver I and my colleagues were surprised when the driver handed us personal invitations to a wedding. As someone who doesn't know many people in Cologne I was confused as to who would invite me to their wedding.

As it turns out I don't know more people in Cologne than I thought. The wedding I have an invite for is the much anticipated union of the taxi driver's son and his fiancee to be held at a Greek orthodox church in Cologne on August bank holiday weekend.

I didn't really know what to say other than thanks but it got me thinking about guests. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't sure if I would invite my current co-workers currently sat in the cab with me to my wedding. I was pretty sure I wasn't inviting the taxi driver and as for the taxi driver's son and his (by the time of our wedding) wife. Well it was pretty unlikely unless I have a big falling out with some cousins and need to get the numbers back up.

I discussed the situation with one of my colleagues and said that I couldn't see me inviting the taxi driver's son to my wedding. My colleague agreed and pointed out that maybe I would spec my guest list differently if the taxi driver's son gave my family 2000 euros a month. He was right. I probably would.

Bad news is I can't make the wedding as I am already booked to attend my friend's wedding in Scotland. Problem is I need to RSVP and decline in a combination of Greek and German!

5 comments:

Anna said...

You're damn right we're not inviting the cab driver, his son or his future daughter-in-law! (Sorry, was that a bit harsh?)

Anonymous said...

Could the German taxi driver sing for his supper at the wedding, and drive Anna to the venue?

Mrs H said...

Maybe it's a Cologne thing? We've only been here 5 months and we have already been invited to two weddings and a christening! And by the way, I haven't been invited to a christening since I was 11 years old...

Unknown said...

Perhaps an X-Factor style series of auditions for wedding guests would solve the problem? You could then play the hilarious audition tapes of those who didn't make it to everyone at the reception. I think its a winner.

Anonymous said...

Is that Piers Morgan reading Rhod and Anna's blog?