To Wed or Not to Wed?

I know, I know you say "But You're already married!"
And the marriage started wonderfully! It was genuine, intensely sweet and heartfelt. Committing to my husband in a Midnight ceremony in a 126 year-old park of Atlanta, surrounded by our closest friends (not even family made it and I'll get to that later) and the elements is my fondest memories of our relationship, a dream come true. We then honeymooned in Gatlingsburg, TN. Total we spent maybe $600! Although we eloped we still got gifts from family and had two receptions (FedEx and The Lawson side).
I doubt that Philip gets this reaction but I have had many friends, co-workers, and family approach me with their expectations and opinions of how I went about getting married. I've gotten a spectrum from those who( for whatever reason) felt dejected that I didn't have a 'huge' wedding; some thought I wouldn't have handled planning one well; and then there are those who thought I would've never gotten married unless I was pregnant or dying.

Some of these observations have been correct while other completely unfounded.

I call it a "wedding" meaning A group celebration of our commitment that involves my family as well as Philip's along with close friends. I want a "wedding" and even thought I'm already married because there are pieces of me that feel it's needed. It's probably mostly tied into my family origins. My parents were married in a courthouse ceremony after dating for six months, 23 years later it ended in divorce. There are so many similarities between those events and mine currently that it's frightening. The apple is right under the tree on this one. Not to mention the fact that I was in two beautiful weddings a month apart right before my husband and I started dating seriously, one of them being my Mom's second marriage.
Now of course I realize that my marriage will be totally different from my parents and that's why I think this is an issue for me. I want to make it different in the minds of my family as well.

In dealing with these feelings I have been reading lots of articles online with two primary goals. One) to gather all kinds of different ideas to include in my main event
Two) to really see how the other side of this argument that my actual wedding was just fine because I did have everything We wanted and I needed to be satisfied with it.

The first day was the easy part. I found my old notebook, a spiral section full of my feelings and ideas at the time. The list that follows is a list of everything I had to have in my wedding ceremony to be exactly what I wanted. The next day I'll read all about how this is one of the main things that you need to do to save tons of money on your wedding. Ultimately I was just following Advice I had given myself to my best friend, Jessica, at the beginning of her wedding planning when her mother/wedding financier started to take over aggressively.

CEREMONY:

1. Check to see if Robyn can officiate?
2. Call the elements (earth,air, fire, water)
3. Pass Rings thru guests
4. Recite own vows/poem
5. Exchange rings
6. Tying of the hands
7. Jumping the broom
8. Cake cutting
9. Tossing the bouquet/garter
10. Photos (Ann, Lena's photographer)
11. Signed pictures frame
12. 15 mins couples' private time
13. Reception lunch/dinner

Of these things I got everything too a tee! Lena actually took pictures, but the garter toss and the signed picture frame weren't missed. I also wrote something about the planning of a wedding being the 'training ground' for actual marriage. This idea I mainly got from watching many couples go through the obstacle course of engagement. Exclusively our first year has been challenge enough without the added stress I had previously deemed vital to testing our commitment. At this point I have separated the events; into my ceremony (what already happened) and my reception (that has yet to happen). I was not totally convinced that perusing the 'wedding' issue was unnecessary.

So today was for the second objective. I read many articles from some highly trusted personal finance blogs about the high cost of weddings. The reality is that the average wedding cost $28,000, that's my total student loan debt so there is no way that was coming out of our pockets. My mom had just had her $12,000 wedding and my dad was not in any mood to contribute. If this event was going to happen we are going to be paying for it ourselves. Most of the articles I read had all kinds of suggestions as to how to cut back on the actual cost of the wedding. Things like serving cupcakes instead of a full cake; having your friends provide everything from music to flowers to officiating and skipping all that stuff altogether and eloping.

But the most pervasive was "The $28,000 question: Why are we all hypocrites about weddings?" especially the comments by fellow readers. The article talks about how we as a society don't plan for the biggest expenses in our lives, things like college, weddings, houses, retirement but mainly weddings. It begged the question for me at least, "why did it bug me that I didn't have the huge 'storybook' wedding?

Mainly because that's not Reality!

I think in this case I did get caught up in the mystique of the wedding industry and the Cinderella syndrome (remember she didn't have money either but a fairy god-mother and she married an Actual Prince).

I still want a party but that's just because I like too. I have a very wonderful thing and when I found it (love) and the one who would and does that with me forever (Philip) he and I did not let it get bogged down with the details. As I told Lena right before I got to the ceremony site,
"I've stripped layers off this Type A 'perfectionist attitude' that I've had, who would've thought that I would trust my husband to setup our ceremony? After I loaded the car I let it go and gave him the directions and knew it would work, that is not usually Trina. I'm not even worried and it's okay!"
And the ceremony was, our marriage is and continues to be perfectly fine. More than anything I have been glad to let those restrictive layers go, marrying Philip has been one of the most liberating things I've ever done in my life. Within the whirlwind of our love there are no social expectations to fulfill only ours to ensure each others happiness.

Too this end I have told my husband that I'm glad we didn't spend tons of money. I look at that list and know that our wedding was everything WE wanted. I'm grateful I listened to him when he told me how he felt and that I for the most part don't let my hypocrisy get the best of me.

I will take Ramit's advice on one thing: saving for the future big expenses! It 's a great idea and a realistic one since we all know that life happens. An example would be that miraculously Philip saved his tax return and that took care of most our wedding costs. We got set back a little but not nearly as much if we had taken on a full-year planning production. Even too me after reading this article its not okay to not save money since we know we want to go back to school, travel, buy a house, kids are coming (not now but in the three-to-four-years future), retire and I don't ever want to make a decision during an emergency based on what we can't afford.