Dear Bride and Groom

Hearty and heartfelt congratulations on your coming wedding, and thanks a million for the invitation.

Unfortunately, His Nibs and I won’t be able to be there on the big day.

Rather than feed you a load of old nonsense about this, I’m going to tell you the real reasons why we won’t be there.

Firstly, I do not have the hundreds of euro necessary to deck myself out, once again, in a colourful dress I’ll only wear once.No, you’re right, you’ve never seen me in a dress worth hundreds of euro in my life. But it’s not only the dress.

It’s the ridiculous pashmina or wrap, in this case it would be a pashmina, since you’ve decided to get married in the middle of the winter.I don’t know why.It’s not the happiest sight, a bright blue bride standing outside the door of the church, hoping in vain that the guests can’t hear her teeth chattering.But far be it from me to offer unwanted opinions.

Then there’s the hat, fascinator or fancy up-do that the hair has to be professionally styled into. God forbid, after all, that a woman go to a wedding with her hair looking anything like it normally does.

And the fake tan, since we’ll all be wearing dresses.And the jewellery to match the dress.The bag, the shoes, it just goes on and on.No matter what shoes I get, my fat ankles always sort of dangle over the sides of them and ruin them.And this is all before we even start thinking about the industrial strength scaffolding that passes as underwear if the dress is bigger than a size 14.

I have absolutely no idea what to buy you as a gift, since I’ve never been inside your house in my life. Like ourselves you’ve been living together for years so I assume a toaster or kettle isn’t necessary.This forces me into a position of trying to guess, just from looking at you, what style your house is decked out in.

I realise I have options on the wedding list, but since the most normal item on there is a set of napkin rings for over a hundred euro, I’m afraid that’s not the road for us.(By the way, please don’t think that we or anyone else think you sit down with linen napkins in rings at dinner time every night – we know bloody well it’ll be Super Noodles once you’re back from your honeymoon, the same as it was before).

Also, I do not have the spare day’s holidays from work.I note from the invitation that you have planned your nuptials for a Thursday – “to make a good long weekend of it” apparently .Do you think the rest of us were born yesterday?  Everyone knows that weddings are cheaper from Monday to Thursday.  Which is fine, I'd get married on a Thursday too, but don't pretend it's for the guests sake.
The problem with a Thursday wedding is that His Nibs and Iwould have to stay overnight (another €200 for the hotel and another reason not to go) and lose a second day from work.

To be honest, we do have the days off coming to us.But we’d much rather spend the time, and the money, on a long weekend in Barcelona during the summer.

Also, due to having a full time job and being more or less a carer for a halfwit husband, I do not have the energy to bring his suit to the dry cleaner’s, or talk him into buying a new one, or keep nagging him to book the day off work.

And you know if we go he’ll only get bored by about 10:30 anyway, and go to bed, leaving the whole place thinking we’ve had a row and he’s gone off sulking.

No, all in all, I think it’s better for all of us, and for our friendship, if we don’t go. I’m sure you won’t mind.Since we haven’t seen each other for three years, I assume we’re only invited to make up the numbers anyway.

If you do mind, please keep it to yourself.If I hear one word of any giving out about us, I will turn up after all and tell them all about the night you both tried out dogging in the Phoenix Park.

Yours in friendship.