Nobody from my side of the family had arrived at the ceremony.
It was not because of a sudden illness, a terrible traffic jam, or some unavoidable emergency that kept them away from me.
Every single one of them was attending Isabelle’s engagement party at a high-end social club in Malibu, complete with white orchids, a live jazz band, and tuxedo-clad waiters.
The absolute worst part of this entire nightmare was that my wedding had already been postponed for an entire year to accommodate their schedules.
Isabelle got engaged only eight months later and still decided, with full knowledge, to hold her lavish party on the exact same day as my wedding.
When I had sent out the initial invitations months ago, my mother only replied with a dismissive text message.
“Let’s see if we can get things settled and figure out our calendar,” she wrote back.
My father took three long days to reply to my email, and all he sent was a generic thumbs up emoji.
Two weeks before the big day, I decided to call my mother to confirm their attendance, but there was just a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line.
