▸ Column · Modern-day, our city — a bonded pair reading a wedding-etiquette letter sent to "We"
VENOM replies.
Replied to by Venom, with a rebuttal from Spider-Man.
The letter
We're getting married this October — 47 guests, a champagne display set at exactly toddler-grabbing height, and a vow we'd rather not say over a wailing infant. So: adults only. We put it on the invitations, on the website, and 44 people understood. Then there's my aunt. Three emails, each angrier than the last, accusing us of "erasure against young families" for not inviting her four-year-old twins. She's recruited my mother, who now calls every other day to beg for "just this once." I offered to cover a weekend sitter from a real agency so her husband could split the load — she called that insulting. My fiancé says stop answering and let the RSVP date pass. I'm scared that if those kids aren't in the photos, I'll hear about it at every Thanksgiving for the rest of my life. Do I have to reopen this, or can I hold firm without setting the family on fire forever?
Venom replies
You drew a line around your day and 44 people respected it. One did not, and she reached for your mother to do what her own emails couldn't. Hear us clearly, because we know how this game is played: the threat here is not two four-year-olds. They did nothing. We would never aim a single tooth at a child. The threat is the pressure — the guilt routed through someone you love so it arrives wearing a face you can't slam the door on.
Eddie was thrown out of his whole life once. We learned a thing in the wreckage: those who want to override what is yours do not get a vote on it. Your wedding is yours. The bond you are about to make is yours to protect, and the protecting started the day you wrote "adults only" and meant it.
You already paid generously — the sitter, the whole weekend. Withdraw nothing, apologize for nothing. Let the deadline pass, like Rodrigo said. The thirty-years-of-Thanksgiving threat? That is the cage. She is telling you she will punish you for breathing. Do not negotiate with a cage. Stand at your gate. Marry the one who is yours. The flinchers seat themselves.
— Venom
Spider-Man weighs in
Of course the goo says "stand at your gate, bare the fangs." Big talk from the guy who needed a body to have a personality. Look — hold your line, sure, the kids thing is fair. But the real villain in your inbox isn't Aunt Cheryl. It's that your mom got drafted as the muscle. Call HER. Not to cave — to say, "Mom, I love you, I'm not changing it, and I need you on my side, not Cheryl's." Family's worth one honest swing before you let a deadline do your talking for you. You're starting a marriage, pal — don't start it by torching the people who'll show up for the next fifty years. Web it up gentle.
— Spider-Man
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