FIELDS: "Good one."
Posted on 09/26/2012 11:20:45 AM PDT by C19fan
When I recently called my mother to tell her that I was getting married, she was ecstatic. After all, my boyfriend, Chris, and I had been together for nearly 10 years, so he had long been part of the family. “When’s the big day?” she asked me. “In about 20 minutes!” I said, trying to sound perky instead of scared. Though we had decided to get married a few weeks prior, we told almost no one beforehand—not even our parents. And now, we were standing just outside the office of the man who would perform the ceremony.
.....................................................
I love a good wedding just as I love any party with an open bar and “The Electric Slide.” But unless you are wealthy, come from a family that has never known strife, enjoy giving up an entire year of your life to planning, and can smile in the face of any possible wedding disaster (and mean it, not just for pictures), you should elope. That’s because weddings—even small-scale ones—are more pageant than sincerity.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
My wife and I had a notary-friend and her husband join us for a dinner celebration at a local restaurant. We rented out one of their banquet rooms and had a little civil ceremony with candle lighting and all the usual stuff in a wedding.
It cost us just a little over $1,000 for the whole shebang. The down payment we fronted for a reception at a local golf resort was $1,000 alone.
My wife said it best: “I want a marriage not a wedding.”
That’s because weddings—even small-scale ones—are more pageant than sincerity.
///
if they’ve been living together, for TEN YEARS,
then i agree.
-
but, i know people who did NOT live together.
and their wedding was much more than pageantry.
(and, their wedding are much more likely to be permanent.)
Definitely beats $25k of debt and a year of stress.
The mystique of these huge, lavish weddings has always eluded me. When I got married it was at the minister’s house, I wore a fancy dress of the bride’s, it was over in fifteen minutes. My folks were there, we had a toast, and off I went to work. (I was a casino band leader, so we celebrated at my gig.)
These big affairs really scare me.
I have seen weddings lead to more divorces than anything else
Maybe because it was Holy Matrimony rather than shackup-deluxe edition or "lets see if this works out for the short-term"
There is no rule stating there has to be a reception or lavish party. The Sacrament is what it is all about.
FIELDS: "Good one."
Exactly...when did it become normal?
My son is serious about a real sweetie he met in our church.
They are both Roman Catholic and will be married in a church, no question...
but I hate my husband’s family for the most part so I’m thinking a “destination wedding” to the Vatican is in order so no one else can come!!!!
Mean, I know....don’t care.
My husband and I got married in a desert park north of Phoenix. We had chili and beer for the reception. I think the entire wedding cost us $500, including the rings. We wanted something simple and fun. The inexpensive part was because we had no money. It must have been memorable because people talked about it for years.
When our daughter got married, we kept reminding the kids it’s about the marriage. The wedding is a ceremony to proclaim and bless the marriage in front of witnesses. They spent a bit more money on theirs, but not too much. It was truly a blessed day.
That last statement can be inferred. It would odd if they met in Church and she was a Lutheran! :)
30 years ago:
We had the wedding and reception at the church we both attended. My mother in law sewed my wife’s dress. My wife and her sister sewed the bridesmaid’s dresses. The photographer was a friend of the family who did it as a gift. That left the wedding cake, tuxedos, and rehearsal dinner as the greatest expenses. Working through how to pay for all this and still have enough to set up an apartment for both of us was good practice for later.
We got through all of it on the strength of the two and a half years of practice deciding things together leading up to the wedding. After all this, we had our first kiss and spent more on the honeymoon than the wedding. All those $100 bills handed to my wife by her father’s family changed that simple honeymoon to something lavish.
Sorry...needed to be more clear, I guess...yes, both met in our Parish church which is Roman Catholic...hence the trip to the Vatican, I HOPE!
I would recommend a destination wedding in Las Vegas. Find a Christian minister for about $150, have the ceremony at one of the alcoves along the strip in front of the Belagio, and have the reception in your suite at one of the hotels with a cake and ready to eat food that can be purchased at the local Costco.
In fact, Costco once had an article on its site about catering your reception with Costco. Get a larger suite for the wedding day for the reception and move to a smaller one for the rest of the Honeymoon. If the bride gets a very nice white evening or cocktail dress, the entire expense should be about $3,000, including airfare for the couple and hotel for 5-6 days. Friends and family can pay their own way and make it a vacation.
Our church volunteered the fellowship hall after the upstairs wedding.
We had all you can eat spaghetti with meatballs, salad, cake, pie and candy/cookies, jello/coolwhip pink and green stuff (I don't know what you call it, but it's loaded with crap good) made by the ladies, home made bread and cows butter.
We drank koolaid (go 'head ... I can take the jokes), coffee, someone provided a few cases of generic cola and I think someone made some tea.
Our bill was about 300 bucks also.
Oh no, not at all. I was merely cracking a lame joke.
What?
We had about 50 or 60 guests ... all church family and blood relatives.
Our church is our friend base as well as church family.
We usually called it “green stuff”. :)
Oh, I get it...the doggone computer is a difficult medium to pick up emotion on...made the same mistake myself on FR earlier today...
I think it IS “green stuff” in the original Chaldean.
For your wedding, you wore a fancy dress of the bride’s? Then who was the bride and why were you wearing a dress?
green glop:
Pistachio instant pudding
Canned fruit cocktail
Canned pineapple tidbits or crushed
Cool whip
Don’t drain the fruit. Use 2 boxes of pudding, dump in the fruit and mix well. Then fluff it up with cool whip. Can add miniature marshmallows (white or those pretty pastel ones) if desired.
I KNEW there was a reason out there somewhere for me to continue putting off dieting.
Waste of money, and tons of stress.
Have a simple service, and share some cake.
It is very easy, takes like 3 minutes to make, let it chill for a couple hours. SHARE it with friends or family.
Had my beloved SO not passed away suddenly, we would most likely have a simple wedding, dressed up in nice Sunday worship clothes and look at heading south with the cats and us.
Congrats.
Wow, I couldn't agree more. I have been to Las Vegas, and I can't think of a worse place in the world to start a marriage. Why even bother getting married, if you are going to get married there? (unless you live there)
It’s been around for years. The receipe name is Watergate Salad. Who knows why......
I am so sorry for your loss. A dear friend of mine lost her fiance less than two months before their wedding (also a simple one, BTW). It has been very hard for her. I'll pray for you both.
Not everyone who goes to Vegas does so for immoral purposes, or even to gamble.
I’ve been several times and never places a bet nor done anything I would want to hide from anyone.
Oops. I meant Minister’s wife. She was a life-long friend and loaned me a beautiful dress.
30 years ago come October, my wife and I were married. We lived in Denver, far away from our families and we didn’t have much money and went the simple route. We got married by the JP in Aurora on a Friday and had a nice lunch afterwards with my wife’s maid of honor, her sister and her husband and my best man and his wife. I was working on a maintenance crew of an apartment complex at the time and my boss gave us the party room in the clubhouse to use free of charge and we had our reception there the next day on Saturday. We provided the food and drink and some people even brought their own bottles. :-) It seems like yesterday, 30 years and 3 kids later, it flies by fast!
25 bucks to the Justice of the Peace in Belton, Texas. Still married 40 years later.
Exactly. You can sin in your own home/town just as much as you can sin in Vegas.
Vegas is Disneyland for grown-ups... that doesn’t mean you have to do bad things while you are there.
Fifty dollars for five minutes from a "civil celebrant"?
I agree.
I think extravagant weddings are an attempt to compensate for an inner suspicion that the marriage of the two people involved is not a good idea.
I wonder if anyone’s done research to see if there’s a correlation between expensive weddings and divorce rates and between oddball weddings (getting married in a non-traditional manner or setting, like getting married at the beach or while skydiving) and divorce rates.
I’ll bet there’s a correlation.
We drove to Vermont a couple of weeks before Christmas. Stayed at a B&B. The housekeeper was the town Justice of the peace and the Inn owner stood as a witness. Beautiful evening ceremony in a dark paneled library in front of a huge fire. The chef at the Inn made us a small pear and white chocolate cake and we went out for dinner. Stayed a week, lots of snow, no phones, friendly people. Loved it and would not have traded it for anything.
A woman who has sex with a man outside of marriage, is the female equivalent of the male “nice guy”: someone who gives away the store to opposite sex in the hope of gaining the person’s love.
And then is puzzled and resentful when they are rejected instead.
It is amazing to see how many regular people have the amazing ability to walk on water! it must be something special about living in a glass house. (/s)
My husband and I wed on the rim of Bryce Canyon National Park where we were both employed, 30 years ago.
The attendees included my parents, my three children, one friend, my brother, sister-in-law and my grandmother. From his side were his parents, grandmother, sisters, one cousin and their spouses.
We went to Ruby’s Inn for breakfast following our sunrise services at Fairyland point. Followed by our Las Vegas reception that was a gift.
It was inexpensive, special, it was unique, it honored our families and best of all it stuck!
The guests walked out to the grove where they had built a cairn, the minister and the groom were waiting for us there. The brides father drove both his daughters out in an old ranch Jeep lined with quilts to keep the dresses clean.
After the ceremony we walked back to the house followed by a Mariachi band and ate Mexican food under a striped tent. It doesn't get any better or much cheaper than that!
We did talk about eloping somewhere along the way when it was getting crazy, but that was never going to happen.
Our granddaughter and her husband had a modest wedding that no one will forget. It was a country-rapper wedding.
Their friend, an AA Christian rapper, sang and rapped in the service and also entertained at the reception on the lawn of the tiny Ozark church.
A good wedding doesn’t have to superficial and expensive. We did probably the bets wedding my wife ever imagined for less than $2,000, including flowers and cake. I could have easily put on the biggest show costing tens of thousands but she wanted her girlhood dream of a wedding at this hilltop church called the Cataldo Mission. Toss in a great mountain top country club reception and life was great. Her mother was dying of cancer but we held the wedding in her little town at that mission and made them both very happy. We had most of her family and much of mine there. I think a good family style wedding beats a commercial blowout any day. We look fondly at our wedding and know we didn’t miss a thing.
Thank-you for kind response and prayers for both the both of us, not only for the repose of the soul David, but also for confort for I.
Over 25 years in the high end hotel business you see some big weddings.
Nothing like Bar Mitzvah’s though! OMG! The money spentl.
10K at 4% interest for 23 years is about 26K.
Hope it was worth it.
The royal blue three piece suit tht David was dressed for his casket with my roses on off-white long dress that I had worn for his wake and funeral would have been our wedding clothes. Very simple.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.