Who are Celebrations For?

Sorry I went MIA for a while. I went out of town and then got caught up in helping my family prepare for my little sister's graduation. This included cleaning the house from top to bottom, buying food, and hiding stuff that we didn't know what to do with in the garage. The Big Day came & it was.......stressful. It's not like the movies with the excitement and happiness because everyone is so caught up with getting the house ready and making sure everyone is where they need to be on time, that no one is really able to enjoy the gathering. All of this stress to sit in the hot Florida heat for an hour & hear 600 names read, mostly names of people YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW! I think back to my graduation & remember everything done in preparation, all the cleaning, the rushing & the pictures. My mom actually passed out missed my walk because she is sensitive to heat and she hadn't slept in TWO DAYS! All to get everything "perfect" for my graduation which she didn't even get to see.
Why do we do this? From what I understand, weddings, baby showers, and all of it is the same. We worry so much about making our celebrations and get togethers "perfect" that we forget to enjoy what should be a happy time. And by the way, after the ceremony, we went out with a lot of family and friends of parents & THE GUESTS' choice of place. That's fine but sometimes, it seems like a lot of these celebrations are more for the audience than the person that is being celebrated. Just a thought.