Not sure who coined those words but they are true; painful but true. It was 5 years this summer that Lindsay and I got married on Prince Edward Island. Other than marrying Lindsay the best thing about that whole weekend was having all my mates make the long trip from all over the globe to share in the festivities.
At that time I never really thought about the sacrifices they all made to come to my wedding, obviously I was getting married and they would all come, right? And they did, of all my closest friends that I invited every single one of them made the 2 week trip for my stag and then wedding. Great times for sure.
5 years ago I was the first of my friends to get married and I looked forward to returning the favour and joining in for all the banter of their staggers and nuptials.
Slight snag though, I lived in Canada and most of them lived in Scotland and Ireland. No matter we make good money so as long as the wedding invites didn't all come at once I should be able to make it to everyone's wedding that made the trip to mine. Things started out well, first there was Ferg and Wendy who got married in November 2009, followed by Gogs and Janis in May 2010, then there was Max and Kelly in September 2010 followed by John and Rachel in July 2011. All weddings were great and well worth the trip. With Gogs, Max and John's weddings I was unable to make the stag do as well. Ask any man (me) with his wife standing next to him (Lindsay) if he would prefer to go to the wedding of a friend or the stag weekend the man (me) would say "of course the wedding". Ask that man (me) with no wife within earshot and he would say the stag or both.
There are many great things about living in Canada (this may be a subsequent blog post) but one of the toughest things over the last few years is to not have been part of the stag weekends of some of my best friends. My stag weekend was immense, 16 guys taking Montreal by storm for 3 full days. I know how much fun I had during that time and would have loved to have been a part of it for John's, Max's and Gog's too.
So up until last year I was at least able to make it to the weddings of everyone that had made it to mine. Then 2012 rolled around and wedding season went into overdrive, first invite was for Phil and Gail's in June in Scotland, of course we planned on making it to that one, then i got wind that my university friend Chris was getting married in April in Ireland. Then Tony finally got his finger out and proposed to the lovely Jo, who said yes and there was wedding number 3, planned for September 2012. Tony was my best man and when he asked me to be his that meant there was no way I wasn't making it to his stag as well. Then our good friends Brett and Lisa, from Calgary, who moved to Angola and we haven't seen for 2 years asked us if we wanted to join them in Portugal for a week in March.
Obviously some tough decisions were going to have to be made. I'm really good at saying No to Lindsay when things that she wants are more for her than for me but it's a lot harder to say no to yourself when you want to do something.
And so it has come to pass that we will be spending my vacation days with Brett and Lisa in Portugal this March. I will then fly over to Ireland for Tony's stag do in August and then back for his wedding in London in September, with a few days afterwards to spend some time with family and friends in Scotland.
I am really looking forward to my holidays this year, cant wait to see Lisa and Brett in Portugal and finally make it to a stag weekend of one of my friends in August, followed by his wedding in September and some time with family. But I will be down on April 14th (when Chris is getting married) and June 23rd (Phil's wedding day) knowing that I was unable to make it for their big day's.
I realise there are worse things I could have to go without and I know that I have made the decision to live in Canada for the time being. But never take for granted having your friends close by, especially when some nice innocent girl decides she wants to spend the rest of their lives with one of them...........
Until next time.....
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