Out with the bathwater

Once the wedding is all over and you're ready to get back to real life it can sometimes be hard to accept the fact that no one really gives a crap anymore.

No one is going to ask you what the plans for your next dinner are, if you're nervous about going to get some milk, or where you're planning on spending your St. Patrick's day. It's amazing how everyone suddenly had to know all about you when you were a bride but once that ring goes on your finger they've already moved onto the next young woman ready to walk down the aisle.

When we went home to Chicago it became cemented in my mind what we have become: old hats.

Last year when we went back for Christmas everyone was all smiles and constantly asking us how things were going and if we needed any help. They were more than happy to make conversation.

This year there were plenty of times I'd be sitting at the kitchen table with his parents and it'd be stone silence. I suspect there is still a lot of regret and anger that I am the reason their son lives in Nebraska and didn't move back home. So the whole trip (which was a giant pain in the ass to make) we were treated as though we weren't really there. People would disappear and leave us alone for most of the day, we were left to fend for ourselves for most meals and never mind the weird looks we got for asking for a real bed.

To add insult to injury I had brought back all the wedding albums, wedding video, and invitation ornaments I'd worked very hard on. The album got a quick look through with a lot of heavy sighs and strange glances, the video was promptly forgotten and will probably never be seen and the bulbs stuck in a corner.

I have come to realize that my in-laws are; well, yuppies. They put much greater faith in something that everyone else does because that's what you're supposed to do. Buy pre-packaged and flavored almonds from an overrated specialty store? Good. Buy almonds in the shell and crack them yourself so they taste as fresh as possible? Weird, so that makes it bad.

My husband's sister is planning her own wedding and how while it is going to be much more elegant and fancier than ours it also comes across as very cookie cutter to me, but his parents are loving it. They did everything possible to avoid doing anything for our wedding citing that the groom's side isn't supposed to but now to me it's pretty obvious that they just hated all our ideas and the fact that we didn't do what everyone else did.

Now we've basically become family pariahs. No one wants to talk to us, we're viewed as weirdos that just don't fit in, and anything we do say is promptly ignored.

Is anyone else going through this? Now that the wedding is over does one side of the family treat you completely differently, especially if you had a wedding that was different? It just pisses me off to know that they all had a lot of fun at the time but it still wasn't good enough so they set all their hopes on his sisters.

I really do not want to attend her's considering how I'll just be pushed to the back, wearing an uncomfortable "black tie" dress, viewed as an outsider. Maybe I could catch the Hantavirus and stay home.