Weddings are quite the Protocol Mine Fields

I have two friends who are getting married on June 1st this year.  The wedding ceremonies are 4 hours and 30+ miles apart, with the respective receptions starting immediately after.  In theory, this should be lunch and dinner with two close friends whom I've known for years.  In reality it will be a delicate balance of spending enough time at each and dealing with traffic.

My options are: 

• Goto the first wedding we were invited to, skip the second altogether.  Practical but kinda cold.
• Goto the first wedding, skip the reception and head to the second wedding and reception.  This leave a lot of spare time between and we have to forage for food in unknown suburbs.
• Goto the first wedding, stay for the reception and potentially miss the second wedding but hit that reception.  Wouldn't be the worst though I still cring that some of my friends missed out on seeing the Polish Church we got married at because they opted to just make the reception.
• Goto the first wedding, stay for the reception and watch my watch until we have to split for the next one and stress over traffic.  Winner.

Meeting some of the neighbors

In the long run, I should get over myself and stop projecting.  At our wedding, I was disappointed that some people couldn't let us know they weren't coming when they probably knew months in advance.  One couple even wrote on the RSVP that they were gonig to a block party instead.  Because those annual events are more rare than a once-in-a-lifetime first wedding.

And then there was the husband who said they never got the invitation and had already made plans to go to So-Suede's wedding and didn't recall what time it was so he couldn't be sure if going to both our ceremonies was an option.

The thing is, that option was never on the table.  It probably never occurred to them to do that.  here I am dragging Nightingale to two weddings 30 miles apart and my catholic friends wouldn't attend two weddings less than 3 miles apart.  Note: I'm not saying that decision is a component of being Catholic, that's merely how I identify that particular faction of friends.