Emails: Where is the communication?

In a world where everyone is busy and no one has time for phone calls; emails thrive. Emails are sent out to share recipes, to invite people to parties, to tell someone how you feel about them (albeit in an extremely cheesy forwarding kind of way), to plan events, and apparently to even ask someone to be a part of one of the biggest days of your life: Your Wedding.

A friend of mine is getting married in May of this year and we just went through an ordeal of hurt feelings over email communication ... or lack of.

In December, she sent out emails asking people to be in the house party of her wedding. Somehow or another, I did not receive these emails. Another friend of mine did and text to ask me if I had been asked as well (texting is another issue that I have ... for another day). I did not receive the email and knew that I had already mentioned that it would be OK if I wasn't a part of the wedding because I tend to enjoy the weddings that I attend as a guest more than I enjoy weddings that I attend as a stressed out bridesmaid or other member of the wedding party.

Nearly a month later (yesterday), I called my friend to talk about other things unrelated to the wedding ... mainly related to our new years resolutions. It is during this phone call that she asks me if I want to be in the house party. I tell her "no, thanks ... I'd rather enjoy myself as a guest." And she said "OK." I said this because I had known about the aforementioned email that was sent to a friend of mine weeks before that asked her to be in the house party and it sounded to me like I was simply an after thought.

Today, I received an email from my friend. In it, she explains to me that she has hurt feelings and that she doesn't understand why I do not want to be a part of her wedding. I try to call her once before sending an email back (because honestly, this would have been solved much faster in a phone call to begin with) but she had left her phone at her sister's. I went ahead and sent another email explaining my feelings about not receiving an email ... etc. She replies with the email that was sent to all of the people that she had wanted to be in the wedding ... me included.

I have no idea what happened with the email. I searched through all of my mail and none of the searches pulled up that email. My email has never failed me in the past ... but I guess there is a first time for everything.

Anyway. Feelings unhurt ... but I can't help but wonder how much (if not all) of this could have been fixed by an actual phone call or God forbid even face to face communication. Like I mentioned before ... everyone is busy which is why email thrives as much as it does. However, I know that I personally called all of my bridesmaids, house party members, and even my 5 year old ring bearer to ask them to be a member of my wedding. There was no confusion. There was no missing emails. There was no problems.

So ... take heed ... not everything that you say in an email gets sent ... not everything that you say in an email gets taken the correct way ... not everything sent in an email gets resolved. So come on ... call a friend today! It won't kill you ... I bet that you are a great multi-tasker and can handle a phone and whatever else keeps you busy in a day.