I’ll take wedding for 600, Alex

Oh, I’m sorry – did you think I meant $600.00? Nono, more like 600 people. Yes, that’s right. I’m about to have my big fat Assyrian wedding.

To me, a 600 guest count has always been the norm. My eyes usually start to bulge out of my head when I hear a guest count of 900 to 1200 people, but it obviously doesn’t stop me from going to them – who doesn’t like an open bar?

No one ever really prepares you for how much money actually goes into a wedding. You plan out little details here and there, “I’m going to have this for my wedding!” and then you see how much “this” costs – things change. Weddings are expensive as is; now multiply dinner plates, center pieces, chairs, and everything else in between times 600 people or 60 tables and it’s a whole other ball game. Some people would laugh, or maybe even cry, if they knew how much my wedding was going to cost – with this money and maybe 400 people less, I could be having a Cinderella wedding with all the trimmings instead of just your basic Assyrian wedding that everyone goes to 27 times a year because we just can’t seem to stop getting married.

I know some of you would also think, “Damn, I don’t even know 600 people I could invite.”  Well, jokes on you because neither do I! Probably half of my wedding will be filled with faces that I’ve never seen before, yet there they are. I’m sure it all sounds crazy, but like I said, that’s just how Assyrians roll. Would it have been more cost efficient and easier for us to have a guest count of 200? Sure. Would we have more fun with just being surrounded by close family and friends at our wedding? Most likely. But we are genetically programed to have obnoxious sized weddings –  we just can’t help it. We have big families, and those families have families and God forbid we don’t invite our parents neighbor from back home that no one has spoken to in at least 8 years, but I digress.

To be honest, I couldn’t run from it even if I wanted to. It’s our culture, it’s who we are. We love weddings and we like them big (that’s what she said). I’ve dreamt of nothing else than having an Assyrian entrance as husband and wife for the first time – it’s my favourite part & now I’ll get to have it.

❤️😊