Wedding

I love weddings, despite being a divorced and bitter Old Hag (ha ha). I love wedding dresses and wedding cakes and wedding flowers and wedding music and wedding invitations. Let's face it, weddings are the Ultimate Party!

I was at Target yesterday, looking for some cheap stationery and came across these pre-packaged, do-it-yourself "Wedding Invitation Kits." You could run the invitations and envelopes through your home computer printer, and the sets also featured co-ordinated boxes of Thank You notes. They were hip and trendy and SO DARN CHEAP, it made me love Target even more than I already love Target. Of course, I also realized that my mother and my grandmother would have been HORRIFIED if any one of their progeny resorted to such a hideous option. They came from generations that custom-ordered engraved invitations from a quality stationer! Their standards for what was considered "proper" and "classy" influenced and intimidated me when I was planning my own wedding, years ago.

The one thing I DESPISE about weddings is the COST. To me, the amount of money people can spend on weddings these days seems absolutely ridiculous, so that's why it makes me happy to see do-it-yourself invitation kits on clearance at Target. Weddings should be special occasions and should be an event people will remember, but they don't have to be outrageously expensive, either. I cringe when I watch Hollywood's depiction of the perfect wedding. Remember the absolute avalanche of flowers in the Southern church when Julia Roberts got married in Steel Magnolias? Beautiful, but as a recently-married person, all I could think was HOLY CRAP that's like ten thousand dollar's worth of flowers! And what about Kimberly Williams wedding in Father of the Bride? ICE Sculptures? Seriously, ICE SCULPTURES!?!? The price tag of those affairs is something absolutely unattainable by the majority of the population! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would have a wedding anywhere close to those!

I got married young by today's standards (21). My older sister was attending Physical Therapy school, and my parents were paying Out-of-State Tuition to the tune of about $20K per year, plus the cost of housing for her. I was within one semester of graduating from college, and fairly self-sufficient, since I was already working part-time and my tuition was covered by scholarship money. My wedding cost a grand total of $5,000. While I was planning my wedding, I was very conscious of the cost of everything from food to flowers. I recall being supremely pissed off at the Wedding Dress shop that ordered my dress of choice (cost less than $500) in a size 10 when I was a size 4 and had specifically requested they order a size 6 (it didn't come any smaller). When I went in to pick up the dress and they immediately tried to book me for "alterations," I knew right away that they had purposely ordered the dress 3 sizes too big just to weasel another $250 out of me for "alterations." HMPH! They obviously did not know who they were dealing with! I learned how to sew my own clothes in the 4th grade, and I took that enormous dress home, ripped out seams, added darts, and altered it to fit me perfectly...for FREE! (I also made my own veil and headpiece with $35 and a trip to the local fabric store.)

So, I had a low-budget wedding. My parents didn't go into debt, I was never a "Bridezilla," and it was a pretty nice day, all things considered. What I remember (and value) the most out of that day was the fact that my grandfather, although suffering from Congestive Heart Failure, made the trip (against his doctor's orders), to attend his granddaughter's wedding. My wedding photos are some of the last photos we have of my Grandpa because he died shortly thereafter. My other favorite memory was the feeling I had when they opened up the doors to me to walk down the aisle, and I was overcome with the smiling faces of family and friends who showed up not for the food, or the music, or the dancing, or the booze (because there wasn't any of that--my reception was held at the church and was alcohol-free with "light refreshments" and no dancing.) They showed up just because they were my friends or my parents' friends or my Grooms' friends or my Grooms' Family. I had no regrets about my low-budget wedding, even after attending the larger, fancier weddings of my friends over the years.

There is a well-known, affluent family from my city who made their fortune distributing a particular brand of beer (which shall remain nameless). The family now owns a professional basketball team and some hotels in Las Vegas and the sons have appeared in TV commercials eating $6 hamburgers, washing them down with bottles of wine that cost more than a new sofa. A few of my college Gal Pals went to school with the Daughter from this family, and none of them liked her--found her to be the Typical Little Rich Girl (arrogant and pretentious). She got married with much fanfare (The band KISS played at her wedding) a few years after I got married. HER wedding probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Forgive my friends and me, but when we learned she got divorced less than 2 years after that public spectacle, we snickered (because while we are not pretentious, we are arrogant and, also, catty--ha ha!)

The best wedding I have ever been to was the Low-Budget Affair of one of my college sorority sisters. She and the groom had only recently finished school and were working at crappy jobs (she in retail, he in direct sales). They were a lovely pair, full of potential, but they came from "broken homes" and none of their parents could provide much monetary assistance with wedding expenses. They had their wedding outdoors (which is always risky) at a restaurant that overlooked a Golf Course. They got a "deal" on the location because the restaurant purchased liquor from the Groom's employer and the Groom was their salesperson. He knew the bartenders and the waiters and waitresses at the restaurant and invited them all to his wedding. They were all poor, starving college students, so their gift to the Bride and Groom was to "work" the wedding at NO COST. The Manager of the Restaurant provided the food at "cost." The Groom and his Groomsmen wore khaki Levi Docker's with light blue oxford cloth button-down shirts and navy blue blazers, purchased on sale at a local department store. The bridesmaids wore plain navy blue linen sheath dresses (very Jackie-O) purchased for less than $40 each at The Limited (I know because I had the very same dress in Yellow that I wore for YEARS with a cream-colored linen blazer to work and just a long strand of fake pearls for church and weddings). The bride wore a funky dress that she picked up for a steal off a "sales rack" (because it was a really funky dress, but she was one of those women who could pull off a "funky" look, so it worked perfectly for her.) Just as the ceremony was about to start, the clouds rolled in, blocking out the glaring sun, which made everyone more comfortable on a hot day. A cool breeze blew in, but no rain. Perfect for an outdoor wedding because nobody was squinting in the photographs, and everyone was comfortable.

It was a truly beautiful wedding with less than 100 guests, all of whom had a great time. The wedding was beautiful because the Bride and Groom were surrounded by people who liked them and loved them. It was unpretentious and simple and the people who attended were there not out of "obligation," but because they were truly happy for this particular couple and wanted to wish them the best. There were so many personal touches, done partly in an effort to "save money," and partly to personalize the wedding itself. It was a truly lovely event.

Nowadays, I think people have far more options to create weddings in all kinds of different price ranges. I've been to weddings held in a National Forest, weddings held at the base of a ski hill, and weddings held in a tiny little chapel connected to a photographer's studio. I once even witnessed a wedding reception in a local park with picnic tables outfitted with plastic tablecloths and take-out Fried Chicken and potato salad. I've also been to weddings held in large, old churches followed by receptions in swanky hotels. I've been to wedding receptions that lasted over 6 hours, and receptions that were over within an hour.

While I think it is unlikely that I will ever get married again, I still secretly enjoy thinking about how I would do another wedding. I still enjoy weddings and look forward to the day my children have weddings of their own. I hope to participate in the planning, but, hopefully, without dictating (something Mothers are known for). Maybe the wedding will be in my own backyard. Maybe I'll own the fabulous Bed and Breakfast of my dreams by then, complete with English garden and pond. Perhaps I will actually be in the wedding business, renting out my B&B for such events.

Weddings can be full of Pomp and Circumstance, but they can also be sweetly intimate. Whatever the "style" of the wedding, it in no way guarantees the success of the marriage. I admit that I am biased against huge, expensive productions--I consider them to be a bit of a bad omen. Throwing such great sums of money around seems a bit like gambling to me--a risk I wouldn't want to take.

Sometimes, the simpler the event, and the fewer the guests, the more genuine the wedding.