We could talk about what Filofax/PDA/memory palace techniques almost prevent this kind of semi-error.
Are both weddings at night? I've known people who hit two weddings in a day, but one was morning/midday and the other one was at 5-ish.
2: I had that thought, and it's still a possibility. But without any invitations to work from, and based on what I know about both couples, they're likely to both be start-around-4pm-go-until-11pm affairs.
"Marry in May, rue the day."
We nearly had occasion to rue. I've added a picture to the pool to explain why.
How far apart in the same town are they? You could maybe go back and forth, and if you were lucky, hijinks would ensue.
Seems like it would be pretty easy to show up for the wedding at one (and maybe the start of the reception) and the reception at the other. I have no idea if that would piss off Emily Post but it seems likely that both would be happy to see you.
5-6: The problem with gathering the sort of information that would determine whether that's plausible is, the one couple's currently bopping around another continent on a sort of pre-wedding honeymoon (is that a new thing? I'd not heard of it before).
Inasmuch as formal invitations are useful these days, this seems like exactly the kind of situation they were designed for.
If you haven't been formally invited, then you don't formally have a prior engagement -- which means, formally, you can pick and choose which wedding you attend. At least, that's how it looks to me. Save-the-dates are very useful as aides-mémoire, but I don't think anybody considers them binding.
But I would seriously consider attending both receptions. You would have to be a real sourpuss to object to one of your guests celebrating someone else's wedding in addition to your own.
Your still blew up. Minor facial burns, nothing serious, but the bandages won't be coming off until after the wedding. Also can't talk, and you've got minor memory loss due to the concussion, so you may not recognize everyone at first.
Post your height, weight, and key physical characteristics and the mineshaft will send a body double. Maybe two, just to smooth the hand-off as you jet back ond forth between the weddings.
We once hit a wedding in D.C. and a wedding in Atlanta in the same weekend, one on Friday and one on Saturday. It involved not drinking very much at the first reception, which was a shame given that the first wedding was liquored-up better.
Post your height, weight, and key physical characteristics and the mineshaft will send a body double.
Excellent! 5'11" and around 190 lbs. (I guess? I just ate a lot of chips). I have a beard, but that might have been singed off in the accident. Don't make a fool of me (any more than I would have), okay guys?
Your still blew up.
I had a lot of trouble parsing this.
I would say RSVP to the one with the good out-of-town friend, then go to the ceremony of the other one. (May as well RSVP "ceremony only" so they know not to buy you dinner.) Then don't ever tell you missed the ceremony of the first one.
15.1: I stared at that phrase for approximately 4 minutes before finally getting it.
16: does stanley have a home distillery or is there something else to get?
How far apart in the same town are they?
In fact, is it possible that they will be held jointly?
15.1, 16:
I scanned the thread backwards, so I knew there was -o, +a, and I kept trying to add and subtract vowels to get Your still blew up to make sense.
You ain't put back together! Your still blew up! Har.
17: I thought the implication was that, because I live near where people have stills, I might plausibly have one, too.
18: Nope. In fact! I just got back from a meeting where I learned that (wait for it) one of the weddings has been postponed.
Remember kids: if you're unsure what to do, just wait. Everything will change anyway.
21.2: Damn. I was looking forward to the hijinks.
one of the weddings has been postponed
Because of an impending court date for moonshining?
18: the comedy comes when Stanley realises that in fact they're the same wedding, and he just didn't realise that two of his friends were actually marrying each other.
one of the weddings has been postponed
So, on the gripping hand, from this post we've learned you worry too much.
[This comment soley written to use "on the gripping hand" and possibly still under the influence of the dental anasthet^wanes^wthing that makes your jaw numb.]
I just had a nightmare and now I'm stuck awake. Also that storm everyones been raving about is definitely raging outside, which is kind of cool.
I guess I could try to put a dent in the boring book club book I'm supposed to be reading. It's "crossing to safety" by Wallace Stegner and the forword already implied that nothing happens. Also "forword" looks wrong to me but so does "forward".
So if the foreword gives away that nothing happens, what recommended it to your book club? Is it spectacularly well written? Does it explain the secret of the universe?
The february host picked it. The prose is basically pretty. Apparently Stegner was the head of the Stanford English department for like 100 years. He's got one of those writing styles that probably used to sound knowing and intelligent, but has been spoofed too many times.
Also the topic of this book is the life of two couples who are life long friends, and they're academics, and it's all a bit over saturated. But maybe it picks up. Also "over saturated" is the wrong word but I hate backing up on the iPAd, so we're stuck with rough draft forward-gear heebie.
Is there a good reason for the wedding postponement and by reason, I mean story, but alas, iPad? I knew a couple where at t minus one week they found him 20 yards outside the place he'd been staying, beat to a pulp with broken legs, and everyone had been too drunk to piece together what happened. Their best guess involved him jumping out a 3 story window. Anyway that wedding was postponed for few months, too.
That is to say, this book is just not holding my interest.
This is clearly a book I would pay good money not to read. The disturbing number of such in print and well reviewed is one of the things that puts me off reading groups.
This book club has a pretty terrible track record of books. But it's how we first met our local group of friends, and I really like the group members, and it's an easy way to keep feeding the friendships. But wow have I waded through some crappy books for these people.
I have discovered in myself in the last few years an ability to not finish books, which wasn't an ability I had when I was younger. I used to start reading something, and 50 pages in I'd be thinking, 'wow, this is really dull/obnoxious/silly', but I'd keep going because I sort of felt obliged to. No longer. I can read a couple of chapters, throw it in the Oxfam pile and never look back. It's a great liberation.
But I suppose if important friendships depended on it, i'd manage to finish them. The problem then is what to say at the meeting when everybody else is all bubbly and enthusiastic. How many ways of saying "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like" can you find?
re: 36
Yeah, ditto. I have a canned rant that I can be easily pushed into about this sort of fiction. Although I suppose if I was a member of a book group I could take the chance to foist my own choices on other people.
Yeah, I think I'm the same, although I partly put that down to just having a lower attention span, and being lazier than I used to be. And also the same sort of liberation from obligation you mention.
I studied English at university for a while and that was always a struggle in seminars. Generally people held pretty robust opinions and discussions could be fun, but occasionally someone would just completely love a (crap) book and it's hard to find a polite way of saying, "Look, this is pretentious badly written shit."
Wallace Stegner is my grandmother's favorite writer (well, besides H.V. Morton, but I think they're different categories) and yet I haven't read any as an adult. I suppose I'd try it, but I'd read just about anything.
I don't like it when other people flake out on reading the books because then I feel bad spoiling the ending during discussion. So I always try to finish the books, more than I would bother on my own. On the other hand, there's not always much of a discussion anyway.
43: Do people really care about that? I always read the ending first to get it out of the way. And I hate people who won't tell me how a movie ends because they don't want to spoil it for me. Come on, there's a 99 chance I'm not going to see it anyway.
21.1 is correct. I work under the assumption that anyone living below the Mason-Dixon line can plausibly pose as a moonshiner. With the growing interest in home brewing and similar artisanal hobbies I think home distilling of spirits is all the more plausible.
Home distilling is perfectly plausible, and not just below the M-D line. IIRC, the Times ran a piece on hipster moonshiners in Brooklyn not too long ago, which suggests it's been going on there for years.
Is there a good reason for the wedding postponement and by reason, I mean story
From all I can gather, just that it's difficult to plan a wedding from two different cities while one person wraps up a Ph.D. and the other person finishes year one of residency at a major hospital.