Why do we have weddings?
Not why do we get married, but why do we have the actual wedding?
Is it to celebrate the union of two people who love each other endlessly and want to spend the rest of their lives together? Or is it about running around on the most important day of our lives, while kicking off ,”our beginning”, with a major debt?
Look, let’s be real. Weddings aren’t about getting money per-say, but people do look to get some type of return on their investment after the big to-do is over.
So let’s think about this…
- You’re going to be in a mound of debt
- You’re going to be running around all day
- You have to make sure you spend time with everyone (even people you don’t really know) just so you don’t come off rude
- You’re going to be exhausted
- You’re going to miss out on eating – because I’m yet to see a bride and groom prove me otherwise
- You’re going to pray people don’t cheap out on their gifts
- You’re going to blink and the entire day is going to be over.
Sure, you could counter all the wonderful things that happen on your wedding day, but this is the brut reality of the event.
Just last week my boyfriend and I took a long walk on the beach [see- I’m not against romance] and we start talking about what our future held.
I come from a big Italian family and he comes from a small Irish one- needless to say the idea of a wedding in his mind was pretty much the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Italian style. That can be extremely unnerving to someone who knows today, daddy doesn’t flip the wedding bill anymore.
He opened up and explained how if I wanted a big wedding one day, we were going to have to wait a long time. There were affairs that needed to be put in order, student loans that had to be paid, promotions that had to be given (hopefully) and finances that had to be accounted for.
You know someone loves you when they fear they won’t be able to make the biggest day of your life, the day of your dreams.
We started going down the list of people that would have to be invited, family, friends, etc. What type of band? Where would you have it? How much do venues cost? I watched him get flustered over the thought of engagement rings; the worry was all over his face.
He had mentioned something about his friends who went away for their wedding. Not to an island or another country, they just rented a house down in South Carolina (we live in New Jersey) with their closest friends & family and had the time of their lives.
They laughed, they danced, they drank… they made a vacation out of something that is typically 5 hours long.
What a beautiful idea.
People today invite so many “extras” to their weddings that they don’t even know why they invited them. It turns into the mass chaos of not hurting anyone’s feelings for not being invited, putting people out for money they don’t have, and a whole bunch of other stress that a wedding day shouldn’t have.
A simple list, our closest friends and family, a long table filled with food & drinks and music that goes on for a week straight. Now that’s a wedding.
So we came to the conclusion of this; when the time comes, we will not put ourselves in buckets of debt just so everyone can say they were there. We will rent a beautiful house somewhere, cater a littler bit of food or go to a restaurant. Return to the house with all our loved ones and dance until the sun comes up. If we get hungry later on? Hey- order a pizza. Because that’s what love is.
A Wedding shouldn’t be a show and shouldn’t be debt. It’s a celebration with everyone who has helped you along the way and to see the look on the love of your life’s face when they see you walking down the isle.
… And we will live happily ever after.
