Difficult: friendships that fade and then organizing a wedding

A wedding is pretty much the biggest party of your life, right? Yes. Especially when you add up all the price tags, you won't quickly organize such an enormous party again.

But like with all the fun, there are also tougher sides. And that is absolutely the guest list. It's really hard to make choices. But you have to make those choices because you can't just invite half your city and your old tennis club. I find the whole issue of ‘friends from the past’ the hardest, with whom you've had fun for years, but whom you no longer speak to daily or weekly. Do you choose a shared past or do you leave it as it is?

As you get older, the fading of friendships is inevitably part of it. It's time-wise impossible to maintain all the groups and cliques from the past. You also get new buddies in return, a group of colleagues with whom you do chat about your life every day, just to name one. But when you organize such a wedding party, you want to have everyone together. But it's just not possible, not everything and everyone. Do you invite that friend you last saw a year ago, with whom you never text, call, or meet up, but with whom you once, when you were younger, had such great travels? And partied? Does it add anything to your wedding now, other than the fact that you once knew each other?

Break-ups between friends are less accepted than break-ups in relationships. Everyone understands that it's over with your boyfriend and that you never see each other again, but that you and a girlfriend have grown apart is a bit awkward. That you don't invite her to your wedding because you don't see a future together again so soon is quite harsh. But you can't avoid it.

Women around the age of 25 have an average of seventeen friends they speak to and see weekly or at least monthly. Of course, you see some more often than others, that's just how it is. You can't divide your time among so many people now that you live together, work, and maybe have or want children. Research also shows that we replace about half of our friend circle every seven years. And it also holds true: the older you get, the fewer friends you have left. That's not bad, it's part of it. But I would love to invite everyone I've ever talked to, laughed with, or had tea with to my wedding. As long as you all know that.

FACTS

• From the age of 50, certainly 40% of the Dutch feel lonely.
• In only 50% of cases does friendship come from both sides. If you think you know who your best buddies are... Ask them sometime.
• As adults, we have room in our lives for a maximum of 150 people, including family, colleagues, and our partner and in-laws.