I never liked the idea of public weddings for a plethora of reasons. For starters, seemingly everyone ends up finding something wrong with your special day.
Maybe the food was served too cold.
It was too hot.
The vows were awkward.
There wasn’t enough alcohol.
The venue was tacky.
The list goes on and on. Receiving perspective from those who have had weddings influenced my outlook as well. Nearly everyone I have talked to described feelings ranging from immense stress, anxiety, depression, anger etc. One groom told me in the middle of his wedding that he was so nervous beforehand that he had to vomit three times. How wonderful. A lot of these negative feelings were said to stem from the desire to impress guest. For many, weddings become more about the guests than the people who are actually getting married. Mind you, these are the same guest that will find ridiculous reasons to nitpick and gossip about any inconvenience of the wedding.
Wedding statistics say the average cost of a wedding in 2020 was just a little over $20,000. As the pandemic subsides, the soaring inflation and the recorded number of planned weddings for 2022, the average cost of a wedding is now around $27,000.
In a country where 68% of households cannot afford a $400 emergency payment, one would think people would find ways to avoid this financial predicament. Personally, when I see a cost of $35,000+ for a wedding, I think of that money going towards a down payment or the elimination of debt.
From a financial perspective, another aspect that annoys me are the companies that take advantage of wedding events. Companies will use weddings as a justification to OUTRAGEOUSLY markup the price of services, fees and “unexpected costs.” If you need a basic reference, look up how much your local caterer will markup the price for service in comparison to a similar events such birthday parties or graduations. Tons of companies offering a variety of services do this which completely inflates the price of weddings. The whole thing feels messed up.
One of the ways I knew my wife was the right choice for me was she shared my exact feelings about weddings. We had many talks about the prospects of getting married and she was adamant about us having our own wedding day. For the both of us, this wasn’t an unfamiliar concept. Both of our parents got married this way.
In a cohort where the prospect of not having a wedding would be an absolute deal breaker with so many women, I felt very lucky to have someone who shared my perspective.
So what did we do on our wedding day? For one, we made sure that this would be an entire day doing the things we loved to do. We began our morning by working out then going for a stroll in Old Town, Alexandria where we also got breakfast. We then went to the Alexandria, Virginia Circuit courthouse where we received our marriage license and had our ceremony. After our ceremony, we got some of our favorite cookies from Crumbl Cookies. Then enjoyed a dinner full of southern fixings near the Potomac River. After our dinner, we read our own personal vows and sampled our favorite cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes (White Chocolate Raspberry is the best).
Photocredit : iStockPhoto.com
Nothing fancy or over the top. We worked out, ate some of our favorite foods and got married.
Let me tell you, if you gave us a million dollars and told us to plan our “dream wedding” we would do the same thing all over again. We were completely relaxed. We used our wedding day to truly enjoy each other’s company. Between our documents, lawyer fees, attire, meals and deserts, our total wedding cost was a smidge over $300 bucks.
With that being said, do I see conventional weddings with guests as a bad thing? No. It’s simply not my cup of tea. By no means am I attempting to shame others for what they believe is their ideal wedding day. I’m just thrilled my wife and I did it our way.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Sandy Millar On Unsplash