wedding thoughts

Jim's post got me thinkin' about family weddings and the obligations that go with them.

I've got a wedding coming up for my (younger than me) cousin, who didn't come to our wedding. This cousin is my dad's brother's son, and his 2 sisters did attend our wedding. I'm assuming he was with his folks, who also didn't go to my wedding. They had a graduation to go to that weekend, for my aunt's niece (on her side of the family, so not related to me.) Now on one hand I'm not offended that they didn't attend. We aren't super close or anything. On the other hand, I think that "wedding" trumps "graduation". And I have to consider, whether or not it's true, that my uncle has never gotten along well with my dad, and did that have anything to do with it? My dad goes up to the farm pretty frequently these days to spend time with Grandma and help her out with stuff since Grandpa died last year. When he sees his brother, and tries to get along, I pretty much always hear a story about something mean Uncle said. Of course this is all second hand and from my dad's point of view. But my dad is a pretty nice guy, who likes to help people out, and my Uncle is a cranky sumbitch at best. All of this naturally upsets my grandma.

An illustrative story: One time when my dad was at the farm, he was helping Uncle and Cousin (the one who's getting married) work on a house that Cousin was going to move into. I'm sure that they didn't ask him to help, he just did. They were working on plumbing, installing a toilet I think. Uncle was tightening something, and my dad suggested that overtightening would be a bad thing. Cousin said something along the lines of "what would you know about it?" probably not in a mean way. My dad replied that he was a Master plumber for 20 years, and did know a little bit about plumbing. Maybe this story isn't illustrative at all, but it's an example of how my Uncle looks at my dad, and I guess his views trickle down to my cousin. My dad left the farm, moved to the city and did other stuff, so my Uncle seems to think that all he ever did was sit at a desk, and (I guess) takes offense that my dad's more involved in the farm now. Wow, what a tangent.

So there's a wedding coming up that I'm expected to attend. I'm sure there will be a registry, and I should buy a present. The cousin didn't get us a present for our wedding. I think his name was signed on the card from his folks. I can't add Donald's and my name onto my parents' card, that would just be silly. I think we'll just buy a dang present, because in the end, it isn't my cousin's fault that his dad can be a real asshole.