One of my friends is getting married next year, which is great, except she picked October for the wedding. My birthday is in October. She knows that too, because I make plans for my birthday every year and I’m pretty open about the fact that I like celebrating it.
When she told me the date, the first thing I said was, “Seriously?” She started laughing because she thought I was joking, but I really wasn’t. I wasn’t furious or anything, but out of every month she could have picked, of course it had to be October.
I know I don’t own the month. Every time I complain about this, that’s what somebody says to me, like I think nobody else is allowed to have plans for thirty-one days because I have a birthday. That’s not what I’m saying. I just think if you’re close friends with somebody and you know their birthday is a big thing to them every year, you would at least think about it before scheduling your wedding two weeks before it.
Everybody also keeps pointing out that the wedding is two whole weekends before my actual birthday. Okay, but there’s more to a wedding than showing up for five hours and going home. There’s a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, dresses, gifts, hotels and whatever else she ends up planning between now and then. I’ve already spent money on this wedding and it’s still a year away.
So then we’re going to get through all of that, and two weeks later I’m going to ask everybody what we’re doing for my birthday. I can already hear somebody saying they spent too much money that month or they don’t feel like going out again. Then somebody will suggest dinner somewhere and going home early because we should “keep it simple this year.”
Why does my birthday have to be the thing we keep simple?
What really got me was finding out that she and her fiancé were also looking at a date in November. I didn’t know that at first. I thought maybe October was the only time the venue had open or there was some family reason they had to do it then.
Nope. She likes October because she wants fall pictures and thinks the leaves will look nice.
I’m sorry, but that made me more annoyed. November was sitting right there, but we needed the leaves.
I complained about it to another friend and she told me I was making somebody else’s wedding about myself. I don’t think I am. I’ve helped her look at dresses, I listen to her talk about wedding stuff all the time, and when the wedding gets here I’m obviously going. I’m not threatening to skip it or asking her to move the date now.
I’m just saying I would have thought about it if the situation was reversed. If I was planning something this big around one of my close friends’ birthdays, especially somebody who I know actually celebrates their birthday, I would at least bring it up. Maybe she would tell me she didn’t care. Fine. At least then I asked.
Nobody asked me. She just put the date in the group chat and everybody started talking about hotels and who was going to stay where.
My birthday has been on the same day the entire time she’s known me, so this wasn’t exactly information she didn’t have.
And yes, I call October my birthday month. People give me shit about that too. I usually do dinner with my family, go out with my friends another night and sometimes do something else on a different weekend because not everybody is free at the same time. I like birthdays. I especially like mine.
I don’t expect everybody to spend the entire month celebrating me, but I also don’t want to hear in two years that we can’t go out because everybody already blew their money on the wedding.
I’m still going. I’m still buying her a gift. I’m still getting the dress, taking all the pictures and doing everything else that comes with being in somebody’s wedding.
But when my birthday gets here, everybody better still be ready to go out.
She could’ve picked November.
