Your Dream Wedding is Another Bride's Worst Nightmare
My fiance and I live in the Northeast, which, if you're an engaged couple, you automatically know is code for Insanely Expensive Wedding Territory. I don't even know why I was that shocked when I was reading a story that offered up the price tag on the average NYC area nuptials ... Can you guess? Hold on while I choke it out ... $50K! FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. Ay yi yi!! It blows the mind.
On the other hand, I had an eye-opening moment recently when I found myself scoffing at an article in which the bride-to-be was giving the details on how she is somehow doing a wedding for $5K. She lives in Texas, and it just so happens that her dream wedding involves karaoke at a fraternal hall. I thought, A.) We would never be able to do a wedding like that. and B.) We would never WANT a wedding like that!
But then, I realized I was being kind of ridiculous.
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The writer wasn't necessarily saying that every bride should -- or can -- do what she's doing. She was just relaying her own experience, offering a few tips. And the reality of the matter is that every couple's priorities are different. Some people would rather slash the guest list and have more gourmet food, some couples would rather spend more to do it up with pro flowers than DIY anything, whilst yes, as frustrating as it may be for couples paying their own way, there are lovebirds who don't have worry about a dime, cuz Mom and Dad have it covered. But that's their situation. And it's absolutely pointless -- if not counterprodutive -- to dwell on the cards anyone else has been dealt -- or is choosing to play, for that matter.
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That said, you work with what you've got. You figure out what's important to you as a couple, what you're willing/able to spend to that end, and then, you go from there. I know my mom's head exploded when I told her that awesomeness of the food at any given venue is secondary to me -- that the priority is to find a place where all our out-of-town guests can stay and enjoy themselves as if they were on vacation. And I know there are little details that I am not going to feel like doing myself, that we may not even have, because I'm not much of a DIY Queen. But that's fine. It's like how one of my close friends who is getting married this spring is passing on ceremony programs. Some guests may be shocked by that move, but I cheered her on. You do what you gotta do, and you don't do what you don't want to do.
Let people judge or raise their eyebrows or whisper about it to their hearts' content. In the end, what you spend on and what you don't doesn't really matter, because all that does is that it is YOUR wedding. No one else's.
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Have you ever felt like you were being judged for what you spent on/didn't spend on for your wedding? And at the same time, have you ever judged someone else for what they spent on/didn't spend on?
Written by Maressa Brown on CafeMom's blog, The Stir.
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