That second "collision with stork" is heartbreaking.

Posted August 19, 2007 7:21 PM by Mary Aileen

I agree that the second "stork" story is heartbreaking but it's also puzzling. Was the wedding called off entirely because the bride was no longer pregnant? Did she still get married but in a different dress? Where is the closure?

Posted August 19, 2007 7:32 PM by Adrienne

No. I won't stare at morgue photos of dead weddings.

Posted August 19, 2007 7:34 PM by Niall McAuley

"This would also be a good dress for the corpse bride/dead bride."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

Posted August 19, 2007 7:42 PM by Rich

As regards the dead bride; halloween is coming up, a friend of mine went to a party as a corpse bride once!

Posted August 19, 2007 7:45 PM by Eleanor

With reference to the "corpse bride", I'm thinking perhaps a goth wedding (I freely admit that I don't know enough about goths to know if this is a reasonable guess)? Or a costume based on the Tim Burton movie? (or something combining the two aspects...)

Fascinating stuff. And the idea of maternity bridal gowns makes perfect sense now that I know they exist, but I would have never guessed that you could buy them otherwise.

Posted August 19, 2007 7:47 PM by Naomi Parkhurst

Me, I have a secret obsession with reading the LJ "weddingplans" community -- there is just so much drama involved with weddings, and it's so entertaining to read about.

Although now I might have to join in reading the eBay wedding dress descriptions -- speculating about the rest of the story might be more fun!

Posted August 19, 2007 7:58 PM by Caroline

My favorite advertisement along these lines is something I read in a newspapert classified ad almost 25 years ago.

Wedding dress, size 10, worn once, by mistake

Posted August 19, 2007 8:34 PM by Kelly Buehler

Little stories that put the hem in Hemingway.

Posted August 19, 2007 9:24 PM by Kieran

#4, #6: I think it's more likely referring to a prop costume for a "haunted house" attraction like one of those Jaycee's haunted house fundraisers.

The starting bid was only 19 bucks, so using it as a prop for that price is fairly reasonable. Slap the dress on a long-haired corpse prop, and you've got a nifty little Bluebeard room in your haunted house.

Note the seller's username. I wonder what other stuff she's auctioned.

On further reflection: I'm reminded of this classic urban legend.

Posted August 19, 2007 9:33 PM by Howard Peirce

Then there was this guy.

Posted August 19, 2007 10:39 PM by rm

#7 Caroline, my fantasy is to go into a bridal shop, or even a consignment store, and try wedding gowns on. Factors stopping me: someone might see me (married 25+ years); I don't have the nerve to deal with a shop manager; I am no longer the right size for most off-the-rack stuff. I got married in the 1970s, wearing a white garden-party type dress. I was 90% in the minimalist mood of the times, and the other 10% of me thought it was easier to be minimalist than to think about what I couldn't afford. But oh, this grownup girl would like to play dress-up!

Posted August 19, 2007 11:07 PM by Brenda Kalt

I suppose Great Expectations would have been very different if eBay had existed then.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:15 PM by Jon Meltzer

Oh, jeez, these are all so sad! And SO EXPENSIVE, jesus H. crickenheimer.

I got married at court, and it was interesting to see what people wore. (You mill around in the lobby with the other couples while you wait your turn). One couple was there in jeans, sneaks, and matching tee shirts. I was in a white beaded sweater dress with fancy hair clips and whatnot, and hub wore a nice suit. The only traditional wedding getup - poofy gown, veil, etc - was on a mom-to-be who was at least 7 months along. No shotgun was in evidence, more's the pity.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:18 PM by Mary Dell

Brenda 12: Pick an anniversary and "renew your vows" with another whole wedding ceremony. Tell the wedding shop people exactly what you're doing. They'll love it.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:20 PM by Xopher

Say, speaking of sad dress stories, there's a blog called A dress a day that has several haunting stories about "The Secret Lives of Dresses." If you go to the main blog page and scroll down you'll see a section with links to those posts (unfortunately she doesn't seem to have a category permalink for them).

They're really quite wonderful. I don't *think* I discovered them from a particle link, apologies if I'm wrong about that.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:25 PM by Mary Dell

I worked in an iSold It store for about six months, during my last semester in undergrad. I was the customer service wench responsible for checking items in.

I had bridesmaids, brides, mothers of the bride, all coming in with horrible stories, tales of lawsuits and threats of violence, tears, shouting... there was one family we hesitated to list for at all, in case their stories *werne't* exaggeration. We had one would-be bride who was a size two, and the dress wouldn't fit into our dress form. She had to come into the store and put the dress on for us to photograph, and she cried the whole time, while her dad stood on the side and handed out tissues.

None of those people came even close to recouping all they'd laid out, and that always made it worse.

I hated that part of that job. It was one of many reasons I wasn't at all sorry to leave.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:26 PM by AHT

They were in a Particle, but it's still a good site. Makes me want to know how to sew. I'm already assembling something of a fabric stash, and I have forbidden myself any sewing until I've forgotten what happened with the Mother Of All Laundry Bags. And if that weren't enough, now I'm spoiled for current dresses.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:29 PM by Diatryma

This would also be a good dress for the corpse bride/dead bride.

There's a word for having sex with a corpse, but not for marrying one.

I blame the liberals.

Posted August 19, 2007 11:36 PM by Johan Larson

The Economist recently had an article on the practice of "ghost marriages" in parts of China.

These are literal corpse brides; parents are "marrying" off their dead sons to dead women so they can be buried together.

"A black market has sprung up to supply corpse brides. Marriage brokers—usually respectable folk who find brides for village men—account for most of the middlemen. At the bottom of the supply chain come hospital mortuaries, funeral parlours, body snatchers—and now murderers."

Apparently at least one supplier decided that digging was too much work, and strangling would be easier. (This also meant that the merchandise would be fresher, which makes it more valuable—on the order of 100x the price.)

Posted August 19, 2007 11:46 PM by Christopher Davis

Re: the 'what, me upset?' photo - it's not clear to me that she was terribly upset. If she didn't want her face to be visible on on her eBay listing (understandable), and had limited computer skills, ripping a corner from a sheet of scrap paper and covering part of a photo before scanning it would have been an easy and expedient approach.

Posted August 20, 2007 12:03 AM by debcha

Christopher Davis @20: The Economist recently had an article on the practice of "ghost marriages" in parts of China.

I recently heard an interview with the author Lisa See about her new novel, Peony in Love, in which she mentioned a halfway version of this, as performed in the 17th century: if a girl died unmarried, her family would try to find a bachelor to whom they could pay her dowry in exchange for her being posthumously recognized and honored as his first wife; the first living bride he might take thereafter would have to accept the status of "second wife". Or something. (I've briefly riffled through this book in the store, but otherwise know little about it besides the basic summary in Amazon: "It figures into the plot that generations of young Chinese women, known as the lovesick maidens, became obsessed with The Peony Pavilion (a scandalous opera), and, in a Werther-like passion, many starved themselves to death.")

In other notes, when opening this specific comment thread, Microsoft IE keeps warning me that they suspect the page of being a phishing site. Something about the eBay links, perhaps?

Posted August 20, 2007 12:07 AM by Julie L.

Hey Brenda - David's Bridal has off the rack gowns to size 16 +.

Do what Xopher said - they can't stop you. Bring a friend.

Eastern Star officers need white gowns. Many people use wedding gowns that have been altered. (ie: trains removed, etc.) If you are smart you go to a gown closeout sale with a few friends and have a fun time.

Kate Salter Jackson
(Who has done this - and never been bothered)

Posted August 20, 2007 12:16 AM by kate

There's a word for having sex with a corpse, but not for marrying one.

Necromony? Corruptials?

Posted August 20, 2007 12:28 AM by Howard Peirce

Sometime in the last year, I read a story in which ghost weddings played a part. I can't remember much more than that, though.

When I was in Rainbow-- also Masonic-- we had to have formal dresses. Everyone went to bridal shops to look at the clearance rack of bridesmaid's dresses. Mine was exactly what I wanted, save that it no longer fits.

Go play dress-up! Renew vows, or pretend you're planning to.

Posted August 20, 2007 12:42 AM by Diatryma

Kate, the thing about David's Bridal is that they have a firm No Returns policy. I'd have far fewer interesting listings to read if girls weren't getting stuck with dresses from David's. (And while we're both here: have you put yourself on the waiting list for Ravelry?)

Mary Dell (16), I love A Dress a Day, and I've Particled it a couple of times, but there's no guarantee that's where you saw it. I got to meet its charming author recently when I was in California. She's a lexicographer. When she's not writing about dresses, she compiles dictionaries.

Expensive (14), amen. I'm always shocked. I made my dress, and a matching shirt for Patrick. I don't think we'd have looked any nicer if we'd been wearing clothes that cost the equivalent of our next year's salaries.

Want to see a perfectly daft wedding dress? That thing looks like the butt-plumage has outgrown its larval stage and is now trying to burst forth from the back of the dress. And it's a bargain at only $12,000; normally it would cost $24,000.

Posted August 20, 2007 12:47 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa, have you ever seen this site? It's daft dresses with snarky commentary, and very, very funny.

Posted August 20, 2007 1:04 AM by Naomi

My goodness.
The veil looks like it's trying its best to kill the model, but then the dress will eat it. That dress contains two cushions and a chair.

I once shocked my mother by saying that perhaps I wouldn't get a wedding dress. After all, I have a perfectly nice white suit, and many people have complimented me on it. I'd rather spend several hundred dollars on books.

Posted August 20, 2007 1:08 AM by Diatryma

These ebay entries remind me of Hemingway's classic six-word short story:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Posted August 20, 2007 1:15 AM by yeff

The "what, me upset" picture: I guess the wedding must really have been called off at the very last moment. (Unless she was taking pictures in full gown and veil getup a few days before as opposed to the day of.) Yikes.

Posted August 20, 2007 2:00 AM by Nomie

Well, I came to about twenty-four hours from being able to sell an unworn veil on ebay.

A veil, not a dress. The dress was happily and well worn at my wedding.

The veil arrived the day before the wedding after having spent two months stuck in the Hermiston, Oregon UPS depot as a result of the UPS strike.

I was so happy and excited about getting married that the whole mess didn't matter to me.

Posted August 20, 2007 2:08 AM by Margaret Organ-Kean

An acquaintance of mine in Georgia has been bitching about the cost of her daughter's weddings. which led into a whole series of exchanges about arranging airline tickets to Las Vegas, and safely rigging ladders at her daughters' bedroom windows.

A wedding is a family occasion, but the costs seem to be getting out of hand. Or maybe we just hear about the expensive instances. The glossy wedding magazines don't cover the less expensive end of the market, and so their claims of the average cost are inflated by a biased sample.

Anyway, if going down to the Registry Office in a bus is OK for the Prince of Wales....

Posted August 20, 2007 3:31 AM by Dave Bell

Christopher, #20: Bones had an episode about that last season. They believe in ripped-from-the-headlines plot devices!

Posted August 20, 2007 3:54 AM by Lee

Christopher Davis @20
From your linked article, regarding the man who murdered women to sell as corpse brides:

This January he was arrested again and confessed to strangling six women and selling their bodies. Killing for corpses, he said, was an easier way to make money than digging them out of the ground.

Burke and Hare found much the same thing.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:13 AM by abi

Mary@14: I got married in Pima County Courthouse. My husband was the only groom waiting in line who wasn't wearing Western wear, and I'm pretty sure I was the only bride wearing black.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:13 AM by Eve

Why are so many women led willingly up the bridal trail? The dry cleaners in my town have window displays of wedding gowns attractively boxed,
like presentations of embalmed corpses.

Posted August 20, 2007 6:06 AM by bad Jim

My sister-in-law had a significant train on her wedding dress, which I looked at askance until after the ceremony, I saw how it buttoned up very cleverly, and securely, into a pretty bustle that let her move around normally without accidentally taking out a good portion of the reception furniture and unfirm relatives.

Brenda, if you ever make it up to Boston, the real, original Filene's Basement has a designer wedding dress section where no salesperson will look askance as you try them on. (IIRC, there's still no dressing rooms, so prepared buyers wear lycra bodysuits under their street clothes.)

Posted August 20, 2007 7:08 AM by Connie H.

Brrrr. David's Bridal. I can very easily see someone having to sell an unworn dress on eBay because DB altered it to fit someone else entirely -- I know of several people that's happened to. Hems shortened by chopping off inches of brocade, measurements given to the wrong dress....

Friends don't let friends get alterations at David's Bridal. They aren't even cheap -- I paid $35 to get a bridesmaid's gown altered at a local shop, where they did a lovely job, while another bridesmaid in the same wedding tried to get the same alteration at DB and got charged $90 for them to ruin the dress. They took it in several inches more than was needed, and unevenly, at that. It was a miracle they managed to get enough extra fabric from around the zipper to repair the thing.

Posted August 20, 2007 7:10 AM by G. Jules

Dave Bell #32: My wife is a church musician. She's played weddings that cost over half a million dollars and weddings where the best man was waiting in the church car park for the pizza to be delivered for the reception downstairs. I can tell you that every Saturday, the biggest churches in Atlanta do a roaring trade in expensive weddings.

Posted August 20, 2007 7:17 AM by Fragano Ledgister

#32--There's an entire commercial sector dedicated to making sure weddings are extravagant, over-the-top occasions, since it is, after all, The Most Important Day of Your Life--or, depending on who's writing the copy, The Happiest Day of Your Life. Both usages, but the latter one especially bother me--it's the thought that everything after that will be downhill from there on.

A friend of mine works as stage manager, and also works Events on the side. She helped someone else in the same business with the set-up and take down on a wedding last year that cost well over $150K. The color the bride selected was pale blue--and they had to custom-dye everything (no, not just the bridesmaids' dresses and shoes--I mean Everything--ribbons, table cloths, all of it) to get it the proper shade of pale blue. The decorations included topiaries of white roses lining the aisle. And so on.

The couple were in divorce court in under a year.

My mother is fond of pointing out that her wedding, in May, 1942, came in under a hundred dollars, including the dress, which was a blue silk afternoon dress, since she suspected she'd have trouble buying nice clothes For the Duration (as the War Department put it in on the letter my father got, calling him up for active duty) and they managed to make it last for 47 years.
Others here who have opted for similarly frugal nuptials may take this as an omen, if they like.

While the elaborate wedding has existed as a social phenomenon for a very long time, as it permitted the family involved to make an impressive social display, the lavishness was largely aimed at making the guests and the new in-laws speak well of the good taste and the quality of the hospitality the bride's family could manage. The new trend is part of the Everybody Wants to Be a Star/Celebrity trend we have turned loose on the world--and the guests are not there to be recipients of generous hospitality, but simply as an audience for a private fantasy.

Posted August 20, 2007 9:39 AM by fidelio

Ah, tales of the marital-industrial complex. Followed shortly thereafter by the natal-industrial complex.

Posted August 20, 2007 9:41 AM by Trey

I keep telling people that they only need two things, just two, for a successful wedding:

-Lots of pizza.

-A variety of refreshing adult beverages.

Alas, no one ever listens to me.

(Plus, a moratorium on excruciatingly bad poetry read by the bride's younger sister wouldn't hurt anything, either.)

Posted August 20, 2007 9:41 AM by JonathanMoeller

Teresa Nielsen Hayden @#26:

I made my dress, and a matching shirt for Patrick.

Now that's romance. The whole wedding industry is designed to stamp out that sort of thing in favor of the notion that spending money is the only way to show love. I don't know how I've managed to stay married for 8 years without a steady stream of diamonds, actually.

Posted August 20, 2007 10:22 AM by Mary Dell

My wedding was put together while both my wife and I were still in college, held the weekend before finals (so our friends could attend instead of disappearing to the Four Winds after the tests).

One of our friends majoring in Design made my wife's wedding dress for her senior project, and she charged only for the material.

I think the most expensive item was the wedding cake; all in all the whole event probably cost my wife's parents less than $300. We're still married 23 years later...

Posted August 20, 2007 10:23 AM by John L

Teresa (#26), on the perfectly daft wedding dress: That looks like those ribbon rosettes for 'best in show' have been afflicted by gigantism and metastasized all over the train. Yikes. And isn't the whole point of a train that is supposed to trail gracefully behind you, rather than bump along?

Posted August 20, 2007 10:25 AM by debcha

Naomi (27): I know that site. I occasionally revisit it to get the giggles all over again. Cup holders!

Debcha (45), "best of show" rosettes were the first thing I thought of when I saw it. I can't figure out how the dress is supposed to work. I'd have thought that rearmost cushion cover is too far down the skirt to be gathered up into a bustle, but perhaps the skirt is designed to hang gracefully when kilted up like that. If so, she's still going to look like she's got a white satin version of a fancy Valentine box of chocolates stuck on her rump. Or possibly the "best of show" portion is propped on a hidden wheeled support structure so it'll dutifully trundle along after her?

I'll admit I kind of like this one. I'm a sucker for interesting materials. On the other hand, if I had that much Alençon lace (whether real or a good fake), I doubt I'd use it on a dress I'd only wear once.

Dave Bell, Fidelio's right: weddings are getting more expensive and fantasy-driven. The wedding industry is never going to tell a susceptible bride-to-be that she doesn't need to have the tablecloths match her chosen wedding colors, or that no one's going to forget whose wedding it is if the couple's initials aren't engraved on the Waterford crystal champagne flutes.

Certainly no wedding planner is going to tell her that. If brides and their families didn't get mired in the preparations for out-of-proportion weddings, the wedding planner's profession wouldn't exist.

Miss Manners deplores it, of course. She says that if you're putting on a wedding that's so far beyond your normal party-throwing habits that you have to hire a professional wedding planner, you're in over your head, and should scale back. "Like the parties you normally throw, only a bit fancier" is a good rule of thumb.

AHT (17), I was struck by your comment. It's the same story, only in your case it was face-to-face live action. Selling off an unused wedding dress is bound to be fraught. (I don't even want to think about this one).

Posted August 20, 2007 11:24 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

fidelio 40: I wonder if there's actually a negative correlation between price of wedding and probability of the marriage succeeding? (We can count five years as survival, the way they do with cancer.)

If so, I expect it's because people who have such enormous lavish weddings tend to be spoiled upper-class brats with no ability to do the compromise and give-and-take needed for a successful marriage.

Posted August 20, 2007 11:52 AM by Xopher

Xopher @ #47: I think you might have a point. I've been married 13 years, and our biggest expense was annoucements/invitations. I have a ridiculous number of wonderful relatives.

Get married inexpensively, blow lots of money on a fabulous honeymoon. Or a down on a house. Or stick it in the bank for when something bad happens.

Posted August 20, 2007 12:06 PM by Tania

I just got married earlier this year, at my favorite convention. We reserved one of the convention's panel rooms, grabbed a few cakes from the local bakery, and retired to the con suite for the "reception". Total cost was somewhere under $200, I think.

But while I was never tempted by the giant bride-eating dresses, I did spend some time wisting over the time-intensive wedding favors some people described making. While I can't see investing a thousand dollars in a dress when I already hate wearing dresses, I would have gladly invested the time and money into making two dozen knitted guest favors if I'd had the skill and sufficiently low stress level to manage it.

Posted August 20, 2007 12:22 PM by Fade Manley

#47--Xopher, my mother would not disagree--but her rationale has nothing to do with economic or social class (you can have an extravagant weding, in terms of amount spent/your actual income, at any level) but the spoiled tag does come in to it. The basic question is: Do you want to be marrried to each other, or do you want to be the Star of an Event? (I won't argue that there isn't some factor of "I want it to be a Nice Wedding, with Cool Stuff that people can remember and talk about later on present even in a lot of simple weddings, or that this is a bad thing in itself--most of us would like to have the important memments in our lives made pleasantly memorable)

If what you want is to be married to each other most of all, then you can get past whether everything possible (except the dog, maybe) has been dyed to match or not fairly easily, as the wedding is just a celebration of what you want most: being married to each other. If what you want is to be the Star of a Major Production, the work involved in being married is likely to become tiresome quickly, once the ice sculptures on the buffet have melted and all twelve of the bridesmaids have put their dresses up for sale on eBay.

As far as the party aspect of it goes, the friend I mentioned who has part of the hired help at the dyed-to-match wedding is getting married herself. Her goal for the festivities: "I'd like our guests to be glad they came, and I'd like for us to be able to remember the day as a great start on our lives together." This seems to be to as good a mindset as you can get when you plan a wedding, I think--and you'll notice it says nothing about whether or not things are dyed to match, how much The Dress cost, or any of the rest of the spending traps wedding planners get their profits from.
She also notes, as one experienced in the business end of weddings, that mnost people in the industry--caterers, florists, bakers and so on--charge more for anything associated with weddings, because the people involved are so often exceptionally difficult to deal with.

Posted August 20, 2007 12:36 PM by fidelio

> Anyway, if going down to the Registry Office in a bus is OK for the Prince of Wales....

You could hardly call his first wedding cheap and understated though, could you?

Posted August 20, 2007 12:38 PM by Alan Braggins

Big weddings seem to be the norm among my husband's friends and family - the main expense being the open bar (folks around here* are mostly descended from drinking cultures). Taken as a social system, it actually works pretty well--someone different gets married every summer and bears the expense, but the same folks gather for each party. In big families where the generations get jumbled over time (aunts younger than siblings, that sort of thing) you can count on a steady stream of weddings, pretty much forever. Oh, and the weddings are fun, because the marrying couple view it as their big day to throw a party, rather than their one moment of romantic perfection.

One of the things this system kind of enforces is that your wedding shouldn't look too much grander than anyone else's, and if you have more money to spend than your cousin, you buy better booze, to everyone's benefit.

*Chicago southwest suburbs

Posted August 20, 2007 12:45 PM by Mary Dell

I couldn't care less about whether our napkins match the color of the ribbons on our invitations, but since we want to throw a party for all our friends and family where we feed them dinner and dance into the night, we're already up pretty high in terms of cost. Feeding people is expensive, as is renting a spot big enough to accommodate all the people we'd like to have--and I don't *want* to be one of those people, who spend tens of thousands of dollars without blinking an eye.

Posted August 20, 2007 1:13 PM by cantabridgian poet

bad Jim @ 36: at least the boxed-for-posterity wedding dresses were chosen by the brides.

A friend who really got burned (petticoats! peach hats! matching earrings!) proposed a Bad Bridesmaid Dress party, so at least we could wear the things one more time (beware the phrase 'and you can wear it again').

She didn't go through with it, though. The not-insulting-people logistics ended up being to much of a hassle.

Posted August 20, 2007 1:43 PM by Sharon M

I've got a feeling that the worst thing that can possibly happen to you from an organizational stand-point, if you're getting married, is to take your parents up on any offer to pay for the event.

Once the parents get their teeth into organizing the big day, the poor couple at the centre of the maelstrom are no longer in control. So you see parents who're writing the big cheques using it as an opportunity to work out their own issues in public. If they feel they've neglected their offspring, they spend extravagantly on the wedding -- then guilt-trip the poor youngsters into going along with it ("look how much I'm spending on you! You do look good in that dress, don't you?").

Then there are the parents who were themselves the victims of a drive-by parent-organized wedding a generation ago. They never had the wedding of their dreams, but by golly they've got a chance to organize it this time round! Thus passing the frustration on to another generation.

The wedding industry plays on this -- on feelings of inadequacy, or on mum's frustrated desire for her own dream wedding -- and adds the conspicuous consumption, and the celebrity culture envy, and the diamond engagement rings (a tradition invented out of whole cloth by de Beers earlier in the century), and a whole bunch more stuff on top. It's the worst kind of guilt-driven marketing, and it's inflated the cost of the average wedding in Scotland up to £17,000 -- even though the average full-time wage is only £18,000.

(It didn't occur to me to propose to Feorag until we were thoroughly independent and effectively immune to drive-by wedding management, so we Escaped. We got married four-and-a-bit years ago ... on our tenth anniversary. And we organized the event and footed the bill ourselves, and it cost a lot less than that average, even including the honeymoon. How did we do it? Well, for starters we didn't spend £650 on hiring a tent for the day. Or £200 to hire a bagpipe-playing fool, or £3000 on a dress -- that's the average price, apparently! -- or £150 to hire a Rolls Royce. Or £800 on flowers. The mind, she boggles ...)

Posted August 20, 2007 2:30 PM by Charlie Stross

What gets me is that size 10-12 is billed as "Large". Now that represents a sick culture.

Posted August 20, 2007 2:31 PM by Scorpio

In deference to everyone who has had, who plans, or who has been a part of big (or biggish) weddings that were not nickel and dime affairs but were a lot of fun--I really think the cut-off line is not whether one spent over $x dollars, but the attitude the people having the wedding went into (and through) the proceedings with. Wanting to entertain your guests well (with "well" defined as seeing to it they have a good time and a lot of fun, and that "good time" and "fun" are not defined as making book on whether the bride and her mother will kill each other before the day is over, running a cost estimate on the various decorative details involved, or speculating on whether the marriage will last once the groom's sobered up and the bride has come down from the high of being a princess for the day) is not the same as being an extravagant idiot about the details.

It's the attitude that you carry in there with you that makes the mood, more than anything else you do. Some things just aren't going to be cheap; finding a place for a reception can be a challenge, and even if you have friends who'll cook for you as free labor, providing a meal (which, if a lot of people have traveled from out of town, is exceedingly thoughtful, as well as a chance to relax and visit) costs money. Like any other form of hospitality, though, what matters most is how the people most closely involved see the occasion: a small budget affair can be stingy and grudging, or simple and charming, depending on how you treat each other and the people who come, and a large budget affair can be warm and welcoming, or just an exercise in ostentation. Once you've been to your share of weddings, you can tell the difference.

To compare, Mary Dell's in-laws with their open bars and big dinners are re-connecting with their family and long-time friends, and are beginning to bond with new family and friends, while the girl with everything but the dog dyed to match was living out a fantasy fueled by purveyors of luxury goods; it was an exercise in the care in feeding of an ego, and not a feast of love among friends; except as an audience, and as sources of wedding gifts, the guests didn't matter much to her.

Posted August 20, 2007 2:48 PM by fidelio

Hmmm, this thread is bringing up some bad memories of the time when I was maid of honour for a very good friend and the groom backed out an hour and a half before the ceremony was about to begin. That was a bad day, and my friend was devastated, as was I seeing her so deeply hurt.

Regarding the expense of a wedding, I have never understood how a couple, particularly a young couple starting out, could spend the kind of money on a party that would essentially cover the down payment on a house.

Posted August 20, 2007 3:23 PM by dlacey

I have never understood how a couple, particularly a young couple starting out, could spend the kind of money on a party that would essentially cover the down payment on a house.

Several reasons come to mind.

1. Because mom and dad are paying. 2. Because that's how it's done in the family. 3. Because they'll probably never have a chance to splurge like that again.

I must admit I would be interested in attending a truly extravagant wedding one day. I've only been to two of them, and both were fairly restrained affairs.

Posted August 20, 2007 3:57 PM by Johan Larson

I'm honestly not sure how much my wedding cost. I think it was somewhere in the $3000 range. That covered everything but the honeymoon-dress, tuxes, venue, food, everything. I do know we spent considerably less than most of my cousins did, and considerably more than my father was happy with.

The advice from Miss Manners that Teresa mentions sounds like the reason I ended up so happy with the whole thing. Our wedding was rather like an SCA revel with buffet food and a wedding ceremony at the start. I don't know if I would throw a regular party that large, but if I did, it would be exactly like that.

I listen to people talk about weddings at work, and I'm fascinated and appalled by the scope of the things. No wonder everyone goes crazy.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:03 PM by R. M. Koske

cantabridgian poet, that's the thing. It costs money. Everybody says they will have a simple wedding, and some people actually do, but it's not always possible. As you say, if you want to celebrate with friends and family, you want to feed them. And just the space and the food can cost a LOT, especially depending on where you are. It's not necessarily about frippery, greed, and neuroses. I've never been a pretty-princess kind of girl, but I know if/when I get married, I want to celebrate with my family and good friends, and there are kind of a lot of them.

I actually ran across a great post on this topic today, from what I think is one of the better personal-finance-advice blogs out there.

God, that sounds spammy. Check my previous posts! I swear I'm a real person!

Posted August 20, 2007 4:08 PM by Caroline

Scorpio @56: What gets me is that size 10-12 is billed as "Large". Now that represents a sick culture.

If it makes any difference, bridesmaid/wedding gowns are generally sized smaller than standard RTW in the US (iirc, closer to sewing-pattern sizes? I don't sew, so I could be mistaken); one online shop has a list of charts here.

Meanwhile, while trying to source when/where I'd seen this, I discovered to my horror that since then, it's been outdone.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:25 PM by Julie L.

Meanwhile, from another Brit newspaper article:

Then there was the recent wedding of "anarchic knitter", Freddie Robins. Organised by Rachael Matthews of the Cast-Off Knitting Club, and hosted by the Pumphouse Gallery in South London, the bride wore a hand-knitted gown and carried a woollen bouquet; afterwards, there was a knitted cake, sandwiches and bottles of champagne.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:36 PM by Julie L.

I recommend the book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, based on my skim-read of it. It's like "The American Way of Death" for the wedding-industrial-complex. (I picked it up because a good friend is going to be married next year, and I'm going to be the matroid of honor*.)

---------
* there needs to be a "Ms." equivalent for this job.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:38 PM by Kathryn from Sunnyvale

charlie stross,

I've got a feeling that the worst thing that can possibly happen to you from an organizational stand-point, if you're getting married, is to take your parents up on any offer to pay for the event.

that is why you have to choose your parents carefully. the bulk of our wedding was paid for by both sets of parents, but we got pretty much exactly what we wanted, & there really were no fights, either among the couple or among the families.

my parents live two continents away (also they are hippies & had married off two children already), & they told me how much they'd spend on my wedding, and then sent me a check for that amount. i could spend it on whatever (they didn't know 'til the day what my dress looked like or what the menu was), but i couldn't go over.

mike's parents live in the same area as us, & ended up spending rather more than i had hoped. it was my fault, cause i wanted to have the wedding at their house (they have a nice house and a giiiiant backyard, & they built it all themselves shortly before mike was born). they did spent thousands, but it all went into getting their place into the standard they thought (i kept saying it was fine as it was, i swear!) they needed to host a reception for 60. so they spent a lot, but it was all on their own home & grounds, so they get to benefit from it for more than one day.

our goal was for us to have fun, & our guests to have fun. my biggest expenditure was on food: it had to be kosher, & it was important to me that it be good (not fancy) and enough. in judaism, the first requirement for happiness is lots of good food.

everyone i heard from said it was one of the best weddings ever, beautiful, laid-back, & delicious. & it wasn't even the best day of my life, or the best day of my marriage so far.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:56 PM by miriam beetle

#56 ::: Scorpio winced:
What gets me is that size 10-12 is billed as "Large". Now that represents a sick culture.

Well - given that the current size 10-12 would have been a 16-18 50 years ago...

The sick part of the culture is the obsession with numbers, not the numbers.

Posted August 20, 2007 4:56 PM by xeger

Teresa (and Naomi #27): There's also this site:

www.uglydress.com

which I learned about through an article in People magazine on the subject.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:03 PM by Robert L

R.M.Koske, my wedding was around 3K as well. If pressed, I could find my planning notebook.

That was 25 years ago. My father said he would pay for it, but he wanted me to give him an estimate in advance of how much it was going to cost. (I knew the date a year in advance). I took estimates on all the relevant known expenses, threw in a 10% "Things I forgot or didn't know about" factor and a 3% inflation rate, and gave him the numbers. I brought the wedding in on time (well, of course) and fifty dollars under budget.

Only time in my life I've planned something that well. On the other hand, I did force several men in my life to wear powder blue tuxedos.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:14 PM by pat greene

Johan Larson @#59:

I've only been to one extravagant wedding, and it was definitely a show the parents were putting on, with the kids as the main players. I don't mean that in a cynical way - it was an absolutely lovely wedding. Hindu, ceremony trimmed down because the bride & groom were 1st-generation Americans and weren't going to tolerate a 3-day shindig, so it was "only" 2 hours or so of actual ceremony.

Everyone in the room was dressed in gorgeous fabrics and jewels - the room was at the Palmer House Hilton and there were probably 200 guests. The bride and groom's clothes were handmade silk, embrodered with gold thread and she was practically dripping in diamonds. They were married under a canopy of long-stemmed roses, and there were so many roses placed around the room that you could smell them before you came into the space.

The ceremony didn't seem to include vows--there were a lot of sections with people instructing, admonishing, or praying over the bride and groom, and several trips around a sacred fire. The feeling of the ceremony was that it was about a change in status, not just from being single to being married, but also into being regarded as adults by the rest of the family. And the love expressed in the ceremony was about family, not romance--the ceremony begins with the bride's family welcoming the groom as he's presented by his parents, and then with the bride bidding a weepy goodbye to her brothers. A veil is held up between the bride and groom until they're formally joined to each other. It's a cool ceremony.

For the reception, all the young people in the wedding changed into western-style fancy clothes--not wedding-gown fancy, but nice long party dresses, with a white one for the bride. Dinner was buffet-style, Indian food on one side and American on the other. There were ice sculptures and other fancy touches, as well as heaps more flowers.

The bride and groom were about 24 years old and had been dating since halfway through college, and were both working normal jobs that people have at that age. Their families were paying for the wedding and buying them a house. The whole feeling of the event was very sweet, with the bride's father particularly bursting with pride and everybody very happy. It didn't seem like the young couple was being indulged--just the opposite. This was their way of indulging their parents' desire to have an opulent traditional wedding for their children, and it helped smooth over the whole issue of choosing their own mates and other premarital indulgences.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:15 PM by Mary Dell

fidelio: That's reassuring. I keep telling myself variations on that theme, and we won't be going into debt or anything (both sets of parents are being extremely generous, and if they weren't, we would find a way to have a party we could afford), but there's definitely a feeling that we're succumbing to pressure from the industry. It's nice to have an outside reminder that we're throwing the party we want and ignoring the parts we don't care about, like engraved invitations or massive floral centerpieces or a designer dress or ten attendants. We still can't invite everyone that we'd like to, but we hope it'll be close.

Caroline, that article was great--it's really useful to hear "yes, you can have what you want" instead of the standards of cutting down the guest list, just having a cocktail reception, or finding "free" alternatives. We don't have time to handcraft 150 invitations; we don't have friends in the area with enormous backyards (although if we did we'd consider it); we're certainly not going to assume that our friends who are photographers will donate their time, effort and materials with no compensation.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:15 PM by cantabridgian poet

pat greene: My mother did that too! She says now she wishes she'd let my dad wear his military dress uniform. My dad says he wished that then.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:29 PM by cantabridgian poet

cantabridgian poet (#70): I recently gained a brother-in-law-in-law at a lovely low-key wedding where the "rehearsal dinner" was a pair of 26" pizzas[1] and the "church" was a grassy area on the shore of Lake Crescent.

Sure, it could have cost less money (on down to the "go to courthouse, pay fee, sign papers, congratulations" level) but it was very much what the couple wanted it to be, and we all had fun. I don't think you can really ask for more. Have the party you want, and enjoy yourselves.

[1] If you're in Port Angeles, WA and want good pizza, call these folks.

Posted August 20, 2007 5:47 PM by Christopher Davis

Our wedding was low-key. A few friends, some munchies, and a pre-recorded videotape of Forbidden Planet. Yes, all present were SF fans. How did you guess?

Posted August 20, 2007 6:02 PM by Serge

Scorpio @56: What gets me is that size 10-12 is billed as "Large". Now that represents a sick culture.

As Julie L said, not only is a 10-12 considered large, it's really equal to your average size 8-10. So, as someone who is a borderline 10-12 in normal clothes and getting married next year, I have to try on size 14 gowns.

Which, although a little disheartening, is fine. Except, for instance, when I tried to go shopping at the non-profit Bridal Garden in New York. They sell donated and once worn dresses and give the proceeds to a children's charity--I thought that I could get a great dress and do a good deed.

Too bad that they told me not to bother coming in. Apparently, they don't have a lot of "dresses that big."

It's not their fault that their selection is limited, after all, they are accepting donations. But still.

Posted August 20, 2007 6:17 PM by Kristin S.

About 15 years after my parents got married, my dad wore my mother's wedding dress in a New Year's Day fancy dress fun run. Which proves, I suppose, that a sense of humour is more important for a happy marriage than an extravagant wedding. This year is their 34th anniversary.

By the way, the Eleanor who posted upthread isn't me.

Posted August 20, 2007 6:34 PM by Eleanor

Kathryn from Sunnyvale @#64:

* there needs to be a "Ms." equivalent for this job.

I've heard "Best Woman" once or twice. Although on one occasion that was because the groom's best friend was a woman, so she was in the Best Man role, not the Maid/Matron of H. I believe I've heard of "Man of Honor" for a male Bride's best friend, too, but that might just be my imagination.

Posted August 20, 2007 7:43 PM by Mary Dell

Mary Dell (#69): Other than the choice of venue, your description doesn't sound unusually extravagant for a middle- or upper-middle class South Asian wedding - it could be a reasonable description of my siblings' weddings - and it's a nice reminder that the 'princess for a day' pathology is not a cultural invariant. Hindu weddings are a) really, really important events and b) about both families and not (traditionally, at least) about the couple. For example, there are no groomsmen or maids of honour; both sets of parents, and possibly a sibling or two (like an elder son) sit with the bride and groom. And weddings are almost always planned and paid for by the parents. While there is inevitably going to be an element of showing off one's social status, it's not an exercise in control by a single person. And, like weddings in your family, they are normally large and attended by every member of your family, so there is plenty of opportunity for social reciprocity.

I'm sure there is a lot of cultural variation in what weddings are like - anyone else want to kick in?

Posted August 20, 2007 7:45 PM by debcha

charlie stross:

My husband and I got around the parents-hijacking-the-wedding problem by simply living together for ten years before we got married.[1]

When we decided to get married, we announced it to my Very Catholic and Rather Disapproving folks (assuming all the while that we would be paying for it, because, well, they were Very Catholic and Rather Disapproving, and how cheeky would I have to be to expect a red cent from them?) and my dad was so delighted and relieved he pretty much agreed to all our plans: 50 people, max, bride wearing red, at a winery. My thesis supervisor, coincidentally a Catholic priest, as celebrant. $2Kish including the dress, and we drank the winery out of chardonnay. Well, I didn't. I'm a red drinker.

So, it's all in how you prepare your parents for the Big day, really. A bit of careful planning, and they will behave themselves.

[1] Well, OK, that's not why we did it, but it makes a better story.

Posted August 20, 2007 8:36 PM by vian

There've been several citations of size deflation answering Scorpio@56. Wasn't there a full thread on that topic, not that long ago?

We did the JP thing, partly for sanity (we were both busy at work) and partly to keep the 'rents out of it -- no hostility, just a desire to KISS. Dropped the announcements in a mailbox afterward (the only person who knew in advance was the witness) and went off to a fannish getaway weekend.

Posted August 20, 2007 10:56 PM by CHip

bad Jim, #36, my mother's wedding dress was later worn by three other women so I think it got a good bit of use.

Connie H, #37, a lot of trains just detach.

Charlie, #55, I once went to the wedding of a friend, held at a hotel, and there were about 10 of us who were actually friends of the bride & groom. The rest of the 300 or so guests were business colleagues/clients (with wives)) of the bride's father. (Wedding didn't last a year, but none of us had the nerve to warn them ahead of time.)

Julie L, #62, those brides in the Sun were children.

Posted August 20, 2007 11:50 PM by Marilee

Marilee @ 80... a lot of trains just detach

Steam-powered or diesel?

Posted August 20, 2007 11:52 PM by Serge

Marilee, #80 those brides in the Sun were children.

They didn't look like children. They looked like people whose deepest desire was to look like a dolly-toilet-roll-holder. Or two.

Hang on, maybe they did look like children. May their marriages be longer than their trains, and fuller than their petticoats.

Posted August 21, 2007 12:06 AM by vian

My parents had a fairly ridiculous wedding given the time - they were both only children, so it was really a case of satisfying their parents. But then, like vian@78, I think the elders were all glad that my mom and dad were finally getting married after living together for five years (and moving in together a week after they met).

Coincidentally, today was their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Or yesterday, as it's just passed midnight.

Posted August 21, 2007 12:08 AM by Nomie

I'm near the beginning of the age where my peers are getting married-- graduated college last summer, and that led to at least three weddings. Besides realizing that some of my mother's advice is right-- don't get married too young because none of your friends can buy you good gifts yet-- I noticed that the first wedding of the group is guaranteed to have problems. They're not usually major problems, because planning a wedding during one's senior year of college, in between grad school interviews, usually means one's parents do the heavy lifting, but little things like the church being more stadium than chapel or not having anywhere for guests to sit while they wait for the photographer to finish. I could see the other couples' brains working as they learned from the little mistakes.

Posted August 21, 2007 1:08 AM by Diatryma

Teresa, #46: If she's selling a size-24 wedding gown, it would be nice to see it on a size-24 model! That must be a picture cut out of a bridal magazine, and it doesn't fill me with confidence about how the actual dress would look at rather more than twice that size. Not saying she should necessarily model it herself, but couldn't she borrow a friend or a friend's fitting dummy?

I hired a wedding organizer, which may or may not be the same thing as the "wedding planners" you're talking about. In my case, it was the convenience of one-stop-shopping for a lot of things I'd have otherwise had to arrange for by myself -- decorations, flowers, and catering being the main ones. But her prices were very reasonable, and none of what she did could have been described as lavish; "attractive but modest" was the look we were going for.

My now-ex and I were paying for most of it ourselves, specifically because we wanted to be the ones with the final say over what was done! IIRC, it came in for something under $3,000 because we were creative with our options -- for example, we got a good deal on the university chapel because of my alumna status; I bought fabric and a pattern for my gown, hired a theatrical costumer to make it, and did the beadwork decoration myself; my engagement ring was my grandmother's engagement diamond, remounted in a vintage setting from the local jeweler -- that sort of thing.

Fidelio, #50 & #57 -- Yes. That.

Posted August 21, 2007 1:09 AM by Lee

I mentioned, earlier this month, that I had a family wedding to go to which interfered with our ability to go stay with friends at Lake Chelan, and then I never mentioned the wedding. It was a bit of a hodge-podge, in a way- the bride, groom, and best man wore high-test formal wear, but there were no bridesmaids identifiable as such.

My cousin has spent the last forty-five years improving on her excellant genetics, and chose a dress which was both lavish in detail (a laced-up back closing and crystal bead embroidry) and simple in outline tos how off the success of her self-improvement to best advantage.

The reception was in her parents' backyard, which interfered with his vegetable garden plans for the summer; the flowers on the dining tables would have cost the earth, for anyone else's wedding (our mutual aunt is a florist) and the catering was quite nice, with an open wine and beer bar, and an espresso bar as well. Dinner was roast beef, sauteed chicken, twice-baked potatoes, and two kinds of salad. I wish mine hadn't been the last table served and the first cleared, but, oh, well.

Now if the groom's family hadn't treated all of us on the bride's side as if we were a bunch of heathens/hicks/non-people, it would have been a wonderful wedding.

Posted August 21, 2007 1:55 AM by JESR

debcha #70, as another cultural data point, I've attended some truly lavish weddings in the NYC area. No true society weddings, but several where quite a bit was spent, and at least one where cost was entirely beside the point. That one was, of the (many) weddings I've attended in the past 5 years, the most about putting on appearances for the guests and the least fun.

Diatryma #84, you learn a lot as a wedding guest about how to plan a wedding. My husband and I got married relatively late in the post-college and -law-school marital bell curve you're describing, so we had attended some 30-35 weddings in the 5 years we had been dating before our own. That, plus our experiences as attendants (six attendant gigs between us), helped us to be aware of pitfalls to avoid.

My recent wedding wasn't low cost, but I tried to be conscious of where the costs were coming from and why I was incurring them. For one thing, I grew up in Brooklyn, and it was important to me to get married in my childhood church, and to hold the reception in a place that was meaningful to me (and pretty). There were also a number of family members and close friends, on all sides (mine, his, our respective parents), that we felt it was important to invite. Unfortunately, the cost of renting a space and feeding that number of guests, at NYC prices, was high. However, I felt that those two factors-- places and people that were important to us-- were worth that cost.

Posted August 21, 2007 10:01 AM by Annie G.

Charlie Stross (and others): eventual weddings of long-time live-togethers* can certainly take most of the anxiety and expense out of things. Any surviving parents and close relatives are just relieved, and frills aren't necessary. Kerry and I wore simple Old West Formal -- Locus ran a picture taken in a photo booth several months before the actual marriage -- and it was a courthouse wedding. (Nice old courthouse in Prescott, from back when it was the Territorial capital.) The restaurant dinner later was lousy, since we didn't really know the local eateries and didn't pick it out ourselves, but with a minimal number of relatives and friends it was low-key, just as we wanted.

*nearly 17 years, in our case -- next year we'll have been together for 25

The only real bummer was the death, not long afterward, of the officiating judge (in a car crash). He'd endeared himself to us by coming in on a snowy day and doing the ceremony in his socks.

Posted August 21, 2007 10:53 AM by Faren Miller

#88--Faren, I'll see your shoeless judge, and raise with the judge who married some friends of mine several years ago--she had brought her recently spayed cat into her chambers, as the veterinarian had told her to keep an eye one the patient, and make sure she didn't jump around a lot. So during the ceremony, the cat explored the courtroom, mooching for sttention from us and from the pair of lawyers who'd shown early up for a conference with the judge.

Luckily my friends are cat-lovers, and found it amusing to have this additional guest.

Posted August 21, 2007 11:00 AM by fidelio

Mary Dell (76): My second sister-in-law had a Man of Honor as her only attendant. He was the friend who had introduced them.

That was a nice wedding. They had planned to elope and have a reception later, but so many people were disappointed by the prospect of missing the wedding itself that they changed their minds and threw it together in about six weeks. Small--about 40 people, at least half of them immediate family. Outside in a local park, catered by her former boss as a wedding present, with my father officiating and my mother providing the music.

Posted August 21, 2007 11:42 AM by Mary Aileen

Diatryma #84: That's exactly when I got married, the summer after I graduated college, and that's exactly what happened. We were the first ones, and we did an acceptable, reasonably-priced job of it, but in the 5 years since, it's obvious that we provided an object lesson to many (people have also imitated some of the cool stuff we did too, which is nice).

Examples: double check times with every service provider several days before. Include a map to the hospital in the "info for out-of-town guests" packet, if you're making one up (90+% of our guests were out-of-town, so there wasn't a critical mass of collective wisdom). Set up some chairs near the dance floor. Don't get sick.

My advice for people is always the same: "Make a list of the bare minimum that will make you happy that day. Refer to that frequently. It *always* gets more complicated, but you'll get less wrapped up in it if you remember what's important."

Posted August 21, 2007 11:43 AM by TChem

Oh, the cool-things list is growing too. The only two family wedding rules I know of, declared by my mother, are that "Sunrise, Sunset" is not a wedding song and that the officiant will walk partway down the aisle during the vows so everyone can see the couple's faces. I'm stealing and adapting the wedding favors from the first wedding of the summer-- most of the guests were bio majors, most of the wedding party was headed to grad school in molec bio of some sort, and the favors were culture dishes with pretties inside. I don't have any plans to get married (I don't have any plans to *date* at the moment) but I love the idea of culture-plate Jell-O. Just in case the guests hadn't realized I'm a nerd.

Posted August 21, 2007 12:18 PM by Diatryma

Fidelio #89:

And I'll raise you a JP (ours) in the gazebo in the square-block park opposite the courthouse, closing the wedding by saying "Y'all go and vote, now!", it being a municipal election day.

So we went back to the house with the friends who had shown up (no written-out invitations, just a "we're getting married on Saturday at 11:00"), had the fancy Pepperidge Farm cookie assortment and some inexpensive Spanish sparkling plonk, and then the two of us and our Best People (who themselves got married in the same place by the same judge seven weeks later) went off to brunch. After which we all went off and voted.

Posted August 21, 2007 12:26 PM by joann

Diatryma @92: "Sunrise, Sunset" NOT a wedding song!?

And I quote:

"Now is the little boy a bridegroom, now is the little girl a bride...Under the canopy I see them, side by side..."

Posted August 21, 2007 12:44 PM by Lori Coulson

It is a wedding song, in context, but everyone on my mother's side of the family is forbidden to use it in an actual wedding. I don't think anyone has really considered it, but the ban stands.

Posted August 21, 2007 12:58 PM by Diatryma

Caroline (61), that was an interesting article, so stop apologizing. Someone in the comment thread linked to a further article about wedding costs, also interesting. I wrote a comment on the first article:

It's all very well to go on about how much money you saved on your wedding -- no doubt lots of good ideas there -- but it does start sounding like the Four Yorkshiremen talking about how hard they had it as kids: "You got married under a tarp held up by four sticks? Luxury! We'd have given our eyeteeth to have a tarp, if we hadn't sold our eyeteeth already. We got married in a cardboard box on a traffic island on the Interstate Highway, and thought ourselves lucky..."

Here's the heart of the matter: retail businesses have their pricing structures. Within those structures, there's almost always a level near the top of the scale that's there to catch people who don't ask how much a thing costs. Those people are spending Fool Money. The most expensive thing you can say is "Price is no object." You're really saying "Hello, charge me the Fool Money rate."

It's worse if your fantasies about fairy-princess luxury include the idea that fairy princesses never have to stop and consider how much something costs. In some families, budget discussions are always painful. They're not about the sense of power and reassurance you get from being in control of your own finances. Instead, they're always and forever about not having enough money -- even if the family in question is well off. If you internalize that emotional response to budgeting, the only way to not have that flash of pain when you consider buying something is if you don't consider the cost at all. And how can you have your special, perfect day if all the preparations for it hurt? So the lid comes off the budget.

There is, in fact, a link between overspending at weddings and the incidence of divorce. Money problems are the single biggest source of stress for young couples. Taking on a heavy load of wedding debt may not break every marriage, but it makes things a lot harder than they need to be.

The trick isn't to not have fantasies. You're going to have them. That's good. They nourish the soul. But you have to learn to manage them in non-destructive ways. Loading yourself down with years of debt in order to film an advertisement for the life you wish you were having is not a good plan for happiness.

For instance, I keep hearing young women justify their wedding spending on the grounds that they've been dreaming about this day since they were little girls. Well, so what? Little kids have lots of fantasies, but most kids don't grow up to be firemen or cowgirls or clowns. Why should this little-girl fantasy about the perfect wedding day be so overwhelmingly important that it makes you throw reason and prudence out the window? Learn some new stories! Fantasize about something else!

Besides, the perfect wedding day makes a lousy fantasy. You get ONE DAY of pretending you're the most special girl in the whole wide world. Is that it? Will the rest of your life be an anticlimax? Is getting married the only adventure you can imagine having?

The other reason the perfect wedding day makes a lousy fantasy is that weddings take place in the real world, and they involve other people. All it takes is a freak thunderstorm, case of food poisoning, scheduling mixup, regional blackout, heart attack, decamped caterer, bad fall on a polished floor, et cetera, to bust you back down into the thoroughly imperfect everyday world. And those are just physical mishaps. There's no guarantee that none of your guests are going to be involved in an acrimonious lawsuit with another guest, or grab the mike from the DJ and start exhorting everyone to Come to Jesus, or get drunk and decide to have it out, at the top of her lungs, with the older cousin who sexually abused her as a child and the aunt who (as she sees it) let it happen. If your wedding-day dreams can't encompass the sudden eruption of messy real-world events, you need to re-think them.

The point isn't to have the cheapest wedding possible. The point is to not think of your wedding as something that happens on another plane of reality from the rest of your life, and plan for it like you'd plan for any other major expense.

Posted August 21, 2007 1:42 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa, I had a mental flash when reading your comment...

Considering the amount of money that can be involved in throwing a wedding, why is it that no bank, savings'n'loan or credit union has marketed a "wedding" account?

Like those old "Christmas Club" accounts that some financial institutions used to have?

I have visions of little girls saving their pennies to put into their "hope" account, just like young ladies of earlier eras putting items in a "hope chest."

Posted August 21, 2007 2:15 PM by Lori Coulson

Lori Coulson #97: Speaking as a former bank teller, I can tell you that at least some banks still have Christmas Clubs. And thanks a lot for that nightmare...

Posted August 21, 2007 2:27 PM by ethan

I've been a bit defensive, reading my thread. Barring the land war in Asia, you'd think we'd made all the classic mistakes in our wedding. My parents paid for it, for one thing, and the dress cost over $1,000 for the silk alone.

But...

But I'm the first daughter in generations to get along with her mother. So after a history of quick weddings (my mother gave her mother two weeks' notice of the ceremony) and even a genuine elopement to Reno in the 40's when you did not do that*, this was the first time any of us could have fun with the frills and furbelows‡.

We learned from previous weddings (disposable cameras on all the tables at the reception, reception at the place the previous couple had held a handfasting). We saved money where we didn't care about money (stereo from the house rather than a band to dance to) and where craftsmanship substituted (ikebana flower arrangements as a gift, invitations printed on my father's letterpress, dress made by my mother).

Though we had one uncontrolled screaming battle in the preparations, the planning time was mostly happy time. And we threw it like a party, not an event - invited people we loved**, served good food (chocolate wedding cake with white chocolate icing), laughed a lot. It was the kind of wedding where long-running quarrels were resolved and estranged friends talked again for the first time in years.

That was 14 years ago. So we don't match the "expensive wedding = short marriage" pattern. Probably because we spent the money for the joy of it, not the appearance of it.

-----
* Complete with shotgun†, not because my grandmother was pregnant, but because my great-grandmother was Really Displeased that the wedding had occurred.

† No. Really. Fired, even, in the discussion, albeit just into the air to make a point.

‡ Of Chantilly lace.

** my gentleman of honour was the guy who introduced us, too. However, with the men in kilts, it was useful to have someone in trousers in the bridal party.

Posted August 21, 2007 2:48 PM by abi

The wedding industry here in Hawai'i includes businesses that do lavish traditional Japanese/Western-style/combination weddings for Japanese visitors, including planners, non-denominational chapels, and formal-wear rentals. I'm trying to find an English-language page or site for an example, but am not having much luck (perhaps for the obvious reasons). One of my clients is a wedding singer who works primarily for chapels specializing in these weddings. She says Disney movies have provided song selections, along with the usual standards.

I will be a bridesmaid for an upcoming wedding in which the US-born bride will appear in 3 wedding costumes. The latest plan is for her to wear a vintage wedding kimono for the ceremony (less expensive than buying new), a colorful kimono for the receiving line (these are available as rentals by the hour - usually includes cost of having an on-site dresser to get the bride into and out of the kimono), and then a Western-style dress for the reception. She won't be renting her wedding kimono because she plans to have it framed and hung on the wall in their bedroom.

Posted August 21, 2007 3:11 PM by mk

Abi, I don't think your kind of wedding sounds like the kind people are talking about negatively here. A few thousand for a dress isn't in the 20k 20 stone category.

I'm not going to presume to ask you the final bill, but I don't think anyone here is against nice weddings, just extravagant ones. Things you've said in your post already take you out of that category (I always admire the stereo/mp3 playlist people. Every time I've been to a wedding that used one of those it's been better than a live band).

The point is to have a good wedding within your means where every detail is not the subject of intense scrutiny/obsession.

I've been to some damn nice weddings in the last few years, with very different levels of expenditure. No prima-donna brides though, and I think that's why everything went well... from the Quaker Meeting hall one to the one with the gold and crystal tiara. It's all about your rational means, and the emotions behind it. There's no set price that is "foolish."

Posted August 21, 2007 3:27 PM by Leah Miller

Comign soon to the SciFi Channel... BridesMade of Frankenstein...

"Young lady, you are not marrying that walking corpse!"
"I will. I love him. He makes me laugh. Yes, I'll say it, he leaves me in stitches."

Posted August 21, 2007 3:41 PM by Serge

Speaking from experience, I'd say, don't accept an offer from parents to pay for the wedding unless either you've got a really good relationship with your parents and are absolutely sure they will let it be your wedding reception not their social event on the event of your wedding, or you don't mind if it's their social event rather than your occasion...

ALSO, if it is going to be a big family affair, with all the second cousins, your parent's friends etc. etc., count the number of people, divide by the number of minutes in the day, allow for time taken by the ceremony, eating time (for them, at least - don't presume you'll have time) and so on, and you'll realise you won't have much time to spend with your friends. You know. The people you rarely get to see because you're scattered all over the country/globe, and who have come all this way to be with you on your big day. So organise a pizza supper or something the day before the wedding, inviting just those friends - a relaxed time when you can actually sit down and chat a bit. Then you won't mind as much when you spend most of the wedding day saying hello and goodbye to all those people your parents invited.

Posted August 21, 2007 3:53 PM by dcb

Coming soon to the SciFi Channel... BridesMade of Frankenstein.

Serge, I can just see the invitations: A lovely mezzotint of the Matterhorn, and beneath it, the simple inscription, "You will be with us on our wedding day."

Posted August 21, 2007 4:09 PM by Howard Peirce

Howard Peirce @ 104... "My heart goes to the newlywed couple. In fact, here's its UPS tracking number."

Posted August 21, 2007 4:22 PM by Serge

I'm currently in the preliminary stages of planning my wedding (very, very preliminary), and while the bridal-industrial complex scares th