Compulsively Optimistic: An ENFP Struggles Through Her Wedding Invitations

ENFP idealism at its finest: my wedding felt too large to be constrained by practical considerations.

Photo by Rinck Content Studio on Unsplash

I got married six months ago. One low point of the planning process was crying in my bathroom after a makeup trial, looking like a clown who wanted some romantic attention. I felt hideous, humiliated to be seen by my matron of honor who was there for (much needed) moral support. I couldn’t wait for the makeup artist to leave so I could wash my face and start trying to heal from the experience (she didn’t get the gig).

Still, the guest list was by far the most emotionally unpleasant wedding task. Determining how many people we could invite was hard, but far easier than choosing whom. I agonized. I lay awake at nights thinking about it and dreading the decision-making. For months, my mind was full of vivid images of people judging me or laughing at me. I still think about it and feel weird. I still think of people I wish I had invited.

How an ENFP Sees Weddings

I finally realized why. In retrospect, my struggles can be traced to my ENFP personality type. In addition to being famously indecisive (we like to leave our options open!) ENFPs “tend to see life as a big, complex puzzle where everything is connected… through a prism of emotion, compassion and mysticism.” We’re “always looking for a deeper meaning.” A wedding epitomizes this way of seeing.

Think about all a wedding represents. Much more than two people exchanging vows, it’s a celebration that unites generations of two families into a new family unit, possibly affecting future generations until the end of humanity. It’s one of American society’s only collective rituals. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s stereotypically the best day in a person’s life. Movies, TV shows, and news stories frequently offer deeply emotional and meaningful depictions to be added to the cultural repository. Many of us have our own emotional and meaningful wedding memories in some role that implicates us: as a guest, reader, flower girl, best man, mother of the groom, bride. Fiction stories use wartime weddings to poignantly symbolize that hope and happiness can blossom despite pain, struggle, and loss.

I’ve written about how weddings illustrate that we are all connected, all one. The last sentence of this article, written more than a year before I was engaged, shows just how weighty a wedding guest list is through my eyes:

A Word about ENFPs and Relationships

ENFP idealism at its finest: my wedding felt too large to be constrained by practical considerations. As an ENFP, it doesn’t come naturally to make matter-of-fact choices in general, but especially not about so epic and transcendent a thing as a wedding. Anyone who has planned a wedding knows it’s one practical choice after another. I weathered most of these surprisingly well, but something about the social and philosophical implications of Who You Invite to Your Wedding bested me.

ENFPs “are natural explorers of interpersonal connections and philosophy.” This guest list ended up being a refining process for my entire life’s social landscape. It didn’t have to be. I’m sure many people see it very differently and never have this kind of reckoning.

As I fought to think clearly, my mind snagged on emotional phrases like, “last chance,” “only,” “most important.” If geographically distant friends wouldn’t try to make it to this once-in-a-lifetime event, when else could I ever expect to see them?

As an ENFP, the idea of gathering everyone who had ever been important to me in the same room was irresistible. I haven’t kept in touch well with some childhood friends who used to be a huge part of my life. But I would absolutely love to see them get married! I’d consider it an honor. I couldn’t know if they felt the same way about me unless I reached out and asked.

An ENFP’s Least Favorite Moment: When the Rubber Meets the Road

Most people can invite for their highest hopes and then when the dust settles on that dream, send out more invitations early enough that no one suspects they were in the second round. But we only had four months to plan everything and invite everyone.

You may have gathered that finding a good makeup artist was one of the harder tasks. Another of the most difficult was securing a ceremony venue. Of course we couldn’t send out invitations until this was done. By the time we had a venue and had made all the myriad decisions associated with invitations, they were already being sent out later than Emily Post thought proper.

I reluctantly agreed with my fiancé that I could only invite a certain number of people. I was faced with questions like: If I had to choose one or the other (and I did have to choose, it wasn’t hypothetical), would I rather see a friend’s parents who live a few hours’ drive away or a dear couple from college who had me as a bridesmaid in their wedding and now live overseas? Well, the friends, no offense. But who is more likely to show up?

If I had been sure the friends couldn’t make it, without question I would have invited the parents. I wanted them there! Perhaps I should have known how it would go, but I couldn’t let go of the possibility of seeing the friends, so I invited them. They very politely and regretfully declined.

This is a real example, of course, and I wish I had invited the parents. I’ve known them longer, they’ve been kind to me since my youth, and I have many fond old memories with them: saying hi in the morning after sleepovers, snowboarding, dinner at grandma’s, driving all over town to cheer on my friend as she ran a marathon.

It’s so strange how a wedding is such a once-in-a-lifetime, heavily-documented experience, and yet is shaped so mightily by your social context and life stage. Even the stages of others factor in — if someone is ill, expecting a baby, or not currently a U.S. resident, it may not matter how close you are.

The ENFP in me had to wonder: what if we could all share a special evening removed from the mundaneness of time? I could not bring myself not to try.

I designed and invited for a dream scenario, but was brought back down to earth by the realities of time and space. If I’d married five or ten years prior, back when most of my friends lived in the same places, and/or before so many friends had children, the kaleidoscope of possibilities would have been different.

An ENFP’s Cost-Benefit Analysis

I experienced a lot of self-doubt during this process, and tried to make sense of my choices and thinking. I literally wrote out on a piece of paper my fears and the possible benefit in inviting certain people (paraphrased below). I don’t know whether doing a cost-benefit analysis is typical ENFP behavior, but just read my description of the possible benefits (or, again, this article) if you doubt my ENFP cred.

Fears: They will wonder if I have made any other friends in the years since I was at their weddings and feel sorry for me or think I’m lame.*

Cost to me if fear comes to pass: Nothing, since I wouldn’t know if this was the case.

Possible Benefits/Best-case Scenario: They will show up and time will fall away. They will feel loved by God himself, by the universe, for being so important to someone so far-flung, for being invited into such a significant social situation. The wedding will feel bigger to them than me getting married: a huge fun party with free dinner and an amazing band where you get to see people you don’t usually get to see. They will think back warmly on our good times together and remember them with a smile. They will happily rekindle a connection with me, however infrequent. I will facilitate a reconnection between an entire group of people.

Is it worth risking nothing happening when I stand to possibly gain all that?

Important note: My fears are not falsifiable. Presumably everyone would be polite enough that I would never know if a “no” RSVP was due to schedule, budget, or personal. Furthermore, they could judge me even if they chose to attend, so there is no reasonable or reliable assessment metric.

On some level, I was aware that what I wanted was unlikely. But when imagining the best-case scenario, and in light of the important note, I couldn’t let go of the possibility, however slight, that something wonderful could happen.

Did I Make the Right Choice?

I paid the opportunity cost for my idealism. I never did invite those parents I mentioned. No one filled the spots allotted to my old friends. Some loved ones were missing, having never been invited. Our wedding wasn’t small, but it could have been bigger if I had made different choices.

What I wanted wasn’t necessarily on the table, but I’m glad I didn’t let fear stop me from going after it just in case. At least I tried. I made some mistakes, but did my best. I couldn’t possibly have invited everyone I value — there are too many people.

Our wedding was beautiful and I have so much gratitude for each and every person who attended. I only wish we could have broadened the circle. Isn’t that what any ENFP would want?