Big Wedding?

[OutinChgoburbs]

Anyway, I think there is a trend to wait too long or wait too short. It’s either, “Hey, we’ve known each other a couple months, while the bloom is still on the rose, let’s fly to the Bahamas and get married on the beach in our bare feet, it’ll be romantic”; or, “I want a Cinderella coach with twelve horses and my Daddy AND Grandpa AND Uncle Pete to walk me down the aisle at different positions in a well-rehearsed waltz, and let us not forget the blue spotlights swinging from the choir loft…and a giant molded jello salad made in the shape of a portrait of each of our lives up to that point meeting at the top…with a program on real parchment that gives our birth certificates, resumes, pedigrees, and those of the wedding party, of which there are 20 apiece, all dressed exactly alike in purple satin tuxes or dresses, and the clergyman has vestments that match too, even in Eastertide, except for my doggie, who will only be wearing a purple tie and a diaper to prevent accidents, but the ring bearer can carry a little purple scooper…We can have it in 2009, 3 years from now. In the meantime, why don’t we just live together? So what if I’m three months along? After all, we are getting married in 2009!”

I know a very sensible young woman (not me at all- not a “in my day” story), who went with her beau for two years, knew him four, was engaged to him in February 2006 (Valentine’s Day), and is getting married in November 2006. She and her intended completed the paperwork and classes first, then worried about the reception. The reception will be nice, but it was not 4 years in the making, or even 1 year in the making. It is all very level-headed. And no, there is no little one on the way, thank you very much!:clapping:

 

[sarcophagus]

What you are talking about is the trend in the past twenty or so years to put the wedding over the marriage, to the point where you have a young couple waiting two, three or even four years to get married, simply so they can play celebrities for the day, at a cost that beggers their families and them for years to come. In the meantime before the fantasy event, they are often living together, and have long since consumated the relationship.

This is another reason why DH and I decided to elope…we’d been together for 6 years, living together for 2. It wasn’t appropriate to have a large wedding and we also didn’t see the benefit of going further into debt. We decided to marry in January of last year, married a few months later. In between time, we saved our extra money for our trip to elope. The whole thing cost us $1000 (cause I wanted the rings and dress, it would’ve been cheaper without). It was a really great time and despite living together previously, the fact that we weren’t at home, and we took the time to get a nice hotel etc. made the night really special.