A Couple Thoughts on Weddings

The HG and Strider just had their three week anniversary. How cute is that? In some ways things aren't going the typical way (several things have hindered the completion of our apartment) and we're now residing with the in-laws whilst waiting for things to finish up, which sort of throws a kink into the being settled notion... people ask, "Are you getting settled into married life?" and I don't know quite how to respond. Settled into the nice fact that I get to see him every morning and every night and don't have to talk with him online or say goodbye to him every night? Indubitably YES. Physically settled, no.

Anyway.
That's not the point of the post.

Since I just had my own wedding and then two weeks later helped with the wedding of a friend of Strider's, they've been on my mind a lot lately. And here's a vague summation of my thoughts:

a) Do stick to your budget, even if it's only a mental one. This sounds rather obvious, but it surprises me how many brides, when confronted with a cost more than they planned, just go with it rather than taking the trouble to figure out something else. Case in point: I knew I wanted real flowers, but I also knew I was not going to spend more than $100 on them. In the initial e-mails with the dear friend who did them as a wedding gift, we talked about getting a specific number of freesia and pink roses. When I went to order (from this website), I found that ordering the amount of freesia we'd talked about put me over $100. So I ordered less. The bouquets were still absolutely wonderful (later I'll see about posting pictures of them).

b) Even inexpensive weddings take a lot of detailed thought, and an attitude that realizes that unforeseen things can (and do) come up rather quickly. There are always a few last minute things that need purchasing. This is one reason why it's so important to stick to your budget in other things! The money saved on other things helps during the crunch of the last few days.

c) Each bride needs to decide what is most important to her and be prepared to spend considerably less on other things in order to put emphasis on that. Everything at the wedding does not have to be equally grand, expensive, fancy, gorgeous, etc.
Case in point: Flowers again. Live flowers were really important to me. So was finding the right music for each part of the ceremony. The bride that got married a couple weeks after us devoted more of her time and attention to beautiful centerpieces for the tables and, while also using live flowers, used only one song for the entire processional and one song for the recessional. It's ok to do less in one area so you can put more emphasis on another. We only did 2-4 nice table set ups (for cake, programs, etc.) whilst K. had 24-26.
Her wedding was beautiful and I was happy with mine. Make your wedding your own instead of trying to make it like the ones you see in a magazine.

d) Something I haven't talked about with my parental units, but I think is important for a bride to think about: if there's something you want that is above and beyond what would normally be done by your family, be prepared to contribute to it yourself instead of expecting your parents to cover it all. My parents were already paying for photographer, facilities, invitations, food for wedding peoples during the day of the ceremony, sound equipment, etc. Truth be told, even though $100 was my budget and is not that much for live flowers, there were ways I could have done them more cheaply (going with roses alone and less, getting them from somewhere local the week of, etc.). Strongly preferring the option I went with, though, I just paid for the flowers on my own.
Like I said, this is not something my parents requested, brought up, etc... it's just something that made sense in my head. I think it's important for the bride to realize everything involved in preparing a wedding, including costs. If it's a day for she and the groom, they should also be prepared to invest in it.

e) Remember that the marriage is the thing that's important, not the wedding.