SP Nightmare: A wedding and a baby shower!

[Mary]

I have to go to my friends wedding in a couple of weeks and I'm a little worried about it..only because there are going to be over 200 people there! But I'm nowhere near as nervous for that as for my upcoming baby shower where I will be the focus of attention and each day more names are being added to the guest list! I don't even know half the people being invited! 8O But its good because I will get a lot of the gifts I need for the baby but also bad because I DON'T want to open the presents in front of everyone! 8O 8O 8O I am really bad at that! I get so nervous w/everyone looking at me that even if I like the gift it doesn't show on my face..all that shows is fear and stress and I worry others will think its that I dont like their gift and be offended. My friend thinks that I don't have to open gifts in front of people I can just wait until its over but then I wonder if people will get offended at that too? Or be questioning me about it? Or telling me, "when are you going to open the gifts?" and then what do I say?
It sounds nuts to be so worried about this but I know its because of my Sp, I know I should just be happy and enjoy both my shower and my friends wedding but..well if I could do that I guess I wouldn't have joined this site!!!
So..any suggestions on how to handle the gift situation? Or anything else?

 

[maggie]

hi Mary...i feel for you...i hate that kind of thing...especially opening the gifts in front of other...yikes...and it's not that i would want to appear ungrateful...but it makes me really uncomfortable 8O ....probably no way out of opening in front of guests..but maybe, something i've seen before is...start opening just as food is put out and people start to line up to fill their plates?...then it's more distracting and they're busy eating..and making noise..and maybe you won't feel so singled out...and try to have a good friend or two beside you to help keep track of stuff...hopefully that would help ...p.s. if you pass the gifts around for others to look at while you are still opening...that could help take pressure off too

 

[dzerklis]

Mary youre not alone lol i will have to go to a wedding too, on august 25th. its my acquintances. we used to be deskmates at school for many many years. what the fvck he was thinking when inviting lol hes one of the few persons whom i have told about sp.

 

[young]

I've been to weddings. I've even been the best man at 3 of them. Gave a speach at two of them. Unfortunately most of the weddings I've been two I was alone. So they were kinda boring. I'm not really a dancer. So I just pretty much chilled by mself and drank. Though It does probably look sad sitting by yourself at the head table.

Though at the last two weddings I've been two I kept hearing from my family when are you getting married? I swear if I heard that one more time I was gonna scream. Course being the only one in my entire immediate family that isn't married. Is also kinda depressing. Oh well it happens.

 

[Chilling__Echo]

oh honey, i feel ya!! i really REALLY don't want to ever have a baby shower, that's got to be so hard. and my anxiety is something i've learned to deal with. i hope you're at a place with yours where you'll be able to pull through it. think of it as the only time you'll ever have to do it for this baby!!

 

[GIOLANDA]

I understand you completely Mary. Opening presents in front of others is so anxious,I hate that! I don't know what to say,but I'll pray for you so as to be OK at both wedding and presents. You can pray too and also just try to think that anybody gets embarassed easily and that they're not different from you. But I'm sure that when you'll become a mother,your SA will improve,as you'll have to do different things and you'll be more courageous.

 

[fallenfeather]

Oh no! Not a wedding! Anything but that! I'm in the same boat as you with a friends wedding fast approaching. It's pretty much one of my worst SA nightmares and I've decided not to go and to make up an excuse as to why I can't attend. If it was one of my very close friends I'd have to put myself through the torture and go but as it's a friend I only hear from every couple of months I'm just not prepared to go through something so difficult for him. I know that is selfish but if it was a party or something I'd not be so bad but weddings, christenings and funerals are my worst events for SA. It's weird because in most other aspects of life my SA doesn't interfere anymore and people would never suspect I had a social problem.

The thing to remember is it will never be as bad as you think it's going to be and you will most probably enjoy it more than you think. I always find this after occasions are over, I think to myself "gosh that was actually quite fun in parts". It's just forcing myself to go in the first place that's the main problem.

 

[Mary]

Thank you maggie and everyone for your suggestions and support. I knew this was the place where people would understand me! My friend has come up with an idea for the baby shower so I can get out of opening the gifts. She said that if anyone asks me to open the gifts or anything just to tell them that I promised my hubby I would wait and open them w/him as he wanted to be a part of it but had to work. There's really nothing they can say to that and I think it's perfect. So yesterday when my hubby came home I told him, "honey I promise to open the gifts w/you." and made it official. :wink:
Also my friend is working w/me to make all the games ones where I don't have to participate very much or at all. She doesn't understand my Sp but she knows I freak out and although she doesn't get it, she tries to help.
My mom is the one who I am more worried about, the last "party" I made myself go to, they were looking for volunteers to get up in front of everyone and play a game and she lifts her hand and volunteers me!! 8O :x I was so mad and humiliated. But thank God the lady noticed how uncomfortable I was and picked my mom to do it instead! :lol: But I am just going to have to try and have a talk w/my mom about not putting me on the spot like that! That was horrible.
I still have the wedding coming up but its a really close friend and I have to go, she is also moving away after that. Fallenfeather don't feel bad about not going to your friends wedding. It's not that you don't want to it's that you can't right now and that's o.k. Hopefully one day we won't have this problem anymore.

 

[blackcap]

I've been invited to an old friend's wedding too and I'm absolutely dreading it! I'm still toying with the idea of declining, but I'll feel pretty bad about it. Is there any way of declining it without offending her?

Anyway, I haven't been to a wedding since I was a kid, so I have a few questions for those of you who have been to a few, in case I end up going:

- Are you supposed to send the gift before/after the wedding, or take it with you?

- At the reception, what happens when you arrive? Specifically:
- How do you know where to sit?
- Are you supposed to take your invitation with you to show you're actually a guest?
- Do the bride and groom greet you or are you supposed to go and say hello to them as soon as you arrive?

Thanks for any advice!