Four Weddings and a Will

My brother finally proposed! YAY!!!

And lucky for him that his girlfriend said yes.
About time I think! hehehe.

Im really happy for them. They've been together for yonkers and have been through quite a bit.

I'm glad that they're moving on to the next stage in their relationship.

And I guess thats the natural progression of things. Boy meets girl (or vice versa), they fall in love, they get married and live happily ever after .... or until the time they have kids.

Its like weddings left right and centre for me right now.

No thanks to Hollywood either.
That puts the wedding tally to four now. Six if I include weddings I'm invited to overseas (anyone wanna sponsore me to go to texas? :) )

Not that I'm excited to go to another wedding receptions that is.

I've been to about a hundred wedding reception actually.
Im not kidding.
I was banquet waiter for about three years(maybe four?) And we'd have lotsa weddings every weekend. I've seen it all. Small, big, medium, repeat weddings. (Hmm maybe I should be a wedding planner?)

Its a western hotel so most receptions were obviously western type.

If I could generalise, I would say Italian weddings are the craziest. Heaps of food and almost always extravagant. Asian weddings are funny - we always run out of orange juice on these weddings. Aussie weddings tend to be just a big party. Kinda like a high school ball or prom night, only with older people (acting like teenagers).

I remember one wedding, they decided to have lots of sparklers before the bride and groom walked in. Great idea, except they forgot to deactivate the fire alarm.

Probably the sweetest thing I've seen was when the lead singer for a Perth band got married. He got up on stage and sang a song he wrote for the bride. He sang so well, it sent chills down my spine. Think Creed singing heartfelt lovesong.

But with the many receptions I've worked on, the speeches part always had me puzzled.
I noticed they almost always sounded like they were saying goodbye.

I mean, theres the customary 'welcome to the family' part and the anecdotes about the couple. But there's always this underlying 'goodbye' sounding tone.

Only after my sister's wedding did it finally make sense.

Its goodbye because you will be seeing them less and less.

Its goodbye to the person you once knew. Because someone else has officially become more important in their life.
Its sad, but its a good kind of sad.

If that makes sense.