I freakin’ hate you Cinderella.
Dear God,
I know I’m an ant in your gigantic galactic ant farm. I know you’re dealing with people no longer working at home, child prostitution in Bangladesh, and rumors of Jimmy Fallon replacing Jay Leno (Bring back CONAN, NBC you suck!)… but if you could just wave your magic wand over the fuckin’ ‘wedding’ hanging over my head, would you just please:
1. Please make my soon-to-be-in-laws stop hounding me about how my wedding done outside of the Catholic church is an abomination of the sanctity of marriage
2. Please make my own parents stop hounding me about how my wedding done outside of the Catholic church is an abomination of the sanctity of marriage
3. Please make my boyfriend actually interested in having a wedding
4. Please make my friends actually less interested in me having a wedding
5. Please having people stop asking, “Can I invite so-and-so?” when I’ve not invited ‘so-and-so’
6. Please have a caterer interested in working with us and our limited budget
7. Please have my boyfriend see that a $5,000 wedding is affordable
8. Please have people stop saying that a $5,000 wedding is not doable
9. Please have my friends see that my wedding is not an attack on their single status
10. Please have my friends see that my wedding is not an attempt to one-up their own weddings
11. Please give me someone who’s on my side and that I don’t have to pay to be on my side
12. Please stop giving me that silence on the other end of the phone line when I say to people, “Due to money, we are having an intimate wedding,” when the other person is too scared to ask if they’re invited and I’m too scared to admit they weren’t
13. Please give me a partner who wants a similar-type wedding
I seriously don’t like Elvis that much.
14. Please help me be okay if I decide to elope and realize later that I never wanted to elope, I just caved into the pressure
15. Actually I don’t want to elope, but yes, sometimes I do want to elope, but if I mention that to my boyfriend, he’s going to jump on that and fuck… we’re going to elope
16. Please help me be okay if I don’t have that dream wedding. I know it’s stupid, I know it’s a formula sold to me via Disney’s Cinderella when I was 6 years old, I know it’s selfish and it makes me an awful person.
17. Please help me be okay with spending the money. I know I could use that money towards the mortgage, but I have been frugal every day of my adult life. I don’t see spending that amount on people I love as an evil thing, in fact, I wish I could do it more often
18. Please help me feel better about not spending more
19. Please help me with my relationship towards money
20. Please help my relationship with my partner, because planning this is tearing us apart
21. Please help me be okay that I will not have the wedding my mom and dad had
22. Please stop having magazines say that I either have a wedding or a marriage. I know that it’s just a wedding, and that a marriage is the main idea, but girl dreams die hard, and if my girl dream is dying, then let me mourn about it because once again it’s hard
Apparently, they had a ‘wedding’.
23. Please help me feel less alone and overwhelmed by what everyone else wants. I feel like I can’t please anyone; and all I wanted was to tell the world I love this person and that I loved my friends and family, and for that, I want to celebrate life with you. No flowers, no centerpieces… just good food, good conversation, and the people I love.
24. Please help me accept change and what will be, what won’t be, what might be… and that over all, even if we cancel this whole shenanigans, the best is yet to come
Thank you for listening, even-absentmindly as you are probably trying to figure out whether to keep Hugo Chavez alive or not. But thank you for trying to listen.. even if it makes your eyes roll up in your head since I’m not the only one who’s ever asked you for these things. Thank you.
I had an $8,000 wedding. http://offbeatbride.com/2009/04/green-wedding
$5,000 is doable, but it depends how traditional and fancy you want to get. It also depends on how many people you’re inviting, and how you plan on feeding them. Restaurant banquet rooms can be fairly inexpensive, and when used as a reception area, don’t need catering, chair/table rentals, etc.
Let go of unnecessary expensive traditions. I realize now that we didn’t need a multi-level cake, or bridesmaids in matching dresses, or programs for the reception.
Lastly, don’t read bridal magazines. They’ll just make you think you need to spend more money than you do.
Spend money on the following:
A good officiant. Yes, you can get your friend ordained, but make sure they’re the type that will say something you approve of (friends can be so mischievous!), and that they don’t come down with sudden stage fright.
A good DJ. I had a terrible Craigslist DJ who seemed okay in person at our meeting, but was a total embarrassment. I’ve also been to ipod weddings that were absolute disasters (including one at the wedding of two music majors!) If you must be a DIY DJ, buy or rent PA speakers big enough for your venue, get a mixer board compatible with your laptop, a decent microphone, power strips, and enough cables for everything involved. Ordain a trusted person to transport, set up, helm the DJ station ALL DAY and NIGHT (yes, all night – and NO you can’t be the one in charge.)
Best of luck!
Dear Beverly
I can see that you are totally stressed out and confused… like any sensible person would. You are doing things your way, generally meaning that everytime you choose something you are also giving up something. Something tells me that’s life, not only a wedding.
If you are confident this is what you want, keep calm and carry on.
Kindest regards.
Dear Beverly,
It’s going to be okay. You and your partner will get through this, and you’ll have a lovely wedding with the love of your life. It’s okay to have the kind of wedding you want, and $5000 is doable, and actually not that expensive for a wedding. If you want to book a place and food, don’t tell them it’s for a wedding. Tell them it’s a party. Instant savings.
All the stuff leading up to the wedding is mostly noise. In the end, you’ll still be married to the love of your life, and I wish you guys many happy days together.
“You make me angry…I don’t like to get angry”
“Hulk Smash!!!!”
“POW! POW! POW!”
I think you need my hulk hands more than I do.
Love you |:{(