San Diego. Summer 2001. — While vacationing with my family in California, I stopped in at a ritzy bridal boutique in an upscale mall. Almost instantly, I saw IT. I don’t remember exactly what the dress looked like, but I remember it made me feel like I was walking on air. I don’t remember what was on the price tag, but I knew it was too much. Tim & I were both in college, broke and eating noodles. My parents had six kids and had expressed that they intended to keep everything thrifty (In the end, I think the entire wedding cost under $2,000).
When I got home, I looked up the dress in Brides Magazine and cut it out. I found it online and held onto a secret glimmer of hope that perhaps some mysterious benefactor would see how much that dress meant to me. But my fairygodmother never came.
Back home, my mom drove me to a small dive of a bridal shop in southwest Tucson. They were having a sale. I tried on an off-the-shoulder dress with beading and a train for $99. To this day, I’m not totally certain if everyone was oohing and aahing at the price or the dress. We bought it, took it home, and hung it on the back of my sister’s bedroom door. I cried that night. (And, perhaps, a few nights after that). Petty? Yes. I know.
I have to admit I was a little disheartened when money was spent on boutonnieres, bouquets, candle centerpieces, an awful officiant, and little favors (that everyone threw away).
At one point, we actually asked both sets of our parents – quite seriously – if we could elope instead. They weren’t excited about the idea and we were too young to express our wishes with confidence.
In the end, we had a wedding that was theirs (not ours). 275 people (neither of us are fans of huge affairs). Traditions that didn’t strike true in our hearts (the toasts, the cutting of the cake, etc.).
The event wasn’t us. It wasn’t what we wanted.
Don’t miss Part II tomorrow (there is a happy ending)…
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How much was your dress (and did you love it)? What was your wedding like?
That is why we never told anyone we just eloped. I can laugh now but his parents were so upset. They yelled at him and every once in a while would turn to me and say “I am sure you are a nice girl, nothing personal” then go bak to ranting at him. My mom was not surprised, she just wishes we had invited her. My dad, and well his side of the family, are convinced that they were the only ones not invited and that everyone else did attend. Oh well, we have been married almost 13 years and are very much in love!
We really wanted to elope! I still say a super small ceremony with just friends would have been way better. We did appreciate all the wedding gifts, but seriously a party celebrating marriage after the honeymoon would have worked quite nicely.
My dress cost about $100 (back in 1999). It wasn’t even a wedding dress, rather a white prom dress. I made my accessories (veil, headpiece, etc).
I loved my dress. I couldn’t see spending a huge amount on a dress when we didn’t have the money saved. If I had to do it over again, I would splurge on a few things, including a dress and get married on an island. We had nothing but problems from family and the day was awful until we were in our hotel room alone.
Aww, this makes me sad! Can’t wait to read the mext installment.
We paid for our wedding ourselves. I think it cost us MAYBE $1500, tops. My dress was simple and gorgeous (and only cost $139), it was an outdoor wedding in my dad’s backyard (where I grew up… in fact, we were standing under “my” apple tree!), about 70 people attended, one of our closest friends (who we served in ministry under for a few years, and our families are very close even now) married us… it was super laid back, we had guests bring their own lawn chairs, and had a bonfire reception afterward, where we roasted marshmallows and a couple friends played worship songs on their guitars around the fire. It was a beautifully simple, but very emotional, ceremony, and it fit us and our personalities perfectly! The only thing I would change is our wedding party-our original people (just a maid of honor and best man) flaked on us last minute, so we had to find “fill-ins”….. not really what you want for such a huge, once-in-a-lifetime event!
Backyard weddings are so personal and beautiful. It sounds like yours was lovely (I particularly like the idea of a bonfire reception).
And I meant “next”, not “mext”. Ha! That’s what I get for typing so much on my phone!
I think my dress cost $300.
This is funny… just today J and I were discussing this. A good childhood friend of mine is getting married, in a field, on the family. Farm flannel shirts provided if the weather should turn cold or rainy. And the reception will include dancing. I have no idea, but I imagine it to have white Christmas lights and barn dancing. With apple pie and hot apple cider. I might be wrong, but it reminded us that there is a lot we would do differently given the chance at a do-over. It would be more like a party, less like a wedding. More fun. Less stuffy. And there might have been a mariachi band. Who knows… But… it’s just a day. A day that starts a lifetime. We can have a fun party (and mariachi band?) some other time.
oops… on the family farm… it’s too early (4 am)!
I sometimes wonder if big, expensive, luxury weddings with matching dresses, fancy locales, and extravagant favors will go out of vogue. I can’t help but think that our marriage celebrations should be truer reflections of who we are. In our case…all of the pomp and opulence of the “traditional wedding” didn’t strike true to our interests or our personalities.
Our wedding was the hottest day that summer (40 degrees Celsius!!) but it was so wonderful too! My dress was the third one i tried on and was reasonably priced (though not ridiculously cheap!). We had our wedding here at Teen Ranch – as well as the photos taken around the ranch (they look so beautiful…wish i could show you!)
All in all, a great wedding. But the wedding is only the first day of your marriage, isn’t it? And that’s what’s important!
Funniest part of post-wedding stuff was having to get hotel service up to our room to help us turn on the shower – we very quickly wrapped towels!
We eloped. Correct! We just woke up one morning and decided to go for it. We knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, we didn’t want to have to ask for permission or acceptance from anyone (which if you are of Nigerian heritage, you will understand). I got a nice cheap white dress from Ross, and my husband already had a suit. The only money spent was $900 on the rings, which if I knew what I know now, we probably would have bought a plain white gold band too (SERIOUSLY)….. Having each other really is what is priceless to us.
My husband and I have been talking about 2013 for our wedding renewals. Its something we want to do, to celebrate all the many blessings that came into our lives by HIS grace. And we think, that is what is worth celebrating. We spend so much money celebrating marriages that are sometimes doomed to fail, but no one ever celebrates a marriage that is blessed and fruitful.
My wedding dress cost about $900. The whole affair cost about $11,000 (we budgeted $10,000 and went slightly over according to the impressively detailed spreadsheet my husband used). That includes everything except my engagement ring, which I believe was a pre-wedding purchase! It was small (75 people), our officiant was somebody we know and love, and my dress was everything I had ever dreamed of in a wedding dress.
We were older when we got married (28 and 29) and we knew what we wanted. We put our foot down on favors, children (it was an evening event), and unnecessary things like organized dances and bouquet tosses. It was awesome fun and I’m glad we were old enough to assert our needs and wants!!!
I’m really excited to read the rest of your story!
My dress was $99–from Goodwill no less! I knew it was the one as soon as I saw it. It was perfect and I loved it. I still look at the pictures and think how perfectly it fit me!
I wanted a small wedding, but it ended up being rather large. We both worked at a church and wanted to have the ceremony there. They agreed to let us use the facilities free of charge and it was impossilbe not to extend an invitation to the entire congregation. I probably would have planned some things differently looking back, but it was a great day.
I don’t have my wedding dress anymore. I donated it to a minstry who sent it to Uganda in order to encourage others over there to get married. I like to think that the dress is continuing its story of making people live happily ever after!
Do you know if it was a national ministry/charity? I’d like to do something similar with my wedding dress (I still have it, but would like to give it away soon…preferably to a good cause).
My husband wanted a huge wedding. He wanted to invite everyone he had ever met and spend more money than either of us had in our accounts. I was not a huge fan of this at all. I don’t really enjoy being in a room with hundreds of people I don’t know. In the end, I convinced him to elope. We have never regretted it.
I just want to let you know that we did an extremely small “wedding” in the formal dining room of my Mother’s house. We had my Mother, his Mother, my sister, one of his brothers and two of his sisters there. We said our vows, words that we wrote to each other. I wore a simple skirt and sweater, he wore a pair of khaki pants and a sweater. The total “bill” for our wedding, including a cake, a few small decorations and our marriage certificate $90! We have some pictures, we have our rings, we were mailed out official marriage certificate but most of all we have LOVE. It doesn’t matter the price tag, it should be for you and him. That’s it! We would never dream of doing it differently, we got the same thing people get out of it even if they spend $30,000 on their “dream” wedding. Except we were able to continue to save for our first home, a new car and a future baby. We have been married for almost 5 years now. We don’t regret anything that we did and we still love each other more than ever!
It sounds like your wedding was personal and meaningful. It reminds me of the weddings of past generations – before the bridal industry starting booming and commercialism stole the show.
I am so anxious to hear your second part…
My dress is one of my only regrets from my wedding day. Don’t get me wrong–to this day I LOVE my dress, but it was a LOT LOT LOT of money, and I had tried on other that looked just as nice on me that were much cheaper.
Our whole wedding was a blast, but the price tag could have been a nice down payment on a house. LOL! My husband tried to convince me to have it at the fire house and have it caterered. I didn’t want to even consider that. Some of what we did at our wedding was souly for the purpose of pleasing our parents, and I sure hope that when my kids get married, I take myself outof the equation and allow them to do whatever it is that makes them happy. LOL!
I’m excited for your second part!
My dress was $800, which seems expensive but I LOVED it. We had a fairly big wedding (175 guests) and I wouldn’t change anything. I loved being surrounded by all our friends and family as we embarked on our journey. I realize this wouldn’t be for everyone, and I firmly believe weddings should be for the bride and groom, and not anyone else.
My favorite money-saving tip was buying flowers from the grocery store instead of a florist. We paid 25% of what a florist was charging! We also bought the vases at a craft store but I probably should have checked Goodwill first.
We had a small, private ceremony. We had been living and working in Hong Kong, and the church we attended there met in the apex of the tallest building in Hong Kong. So that’s where we got married. :) It was really lovely, definitely suited our personalities. And we got to honeymoon in Thailand. :)
My wedding was certainly not boring. We spent just about $500, which was a lot of money for a college student and a young airman. I wore a converted formal from an earlier event in the year, made my veil and the flowers were a bouquet of daisies. The “photographer” came to the chapel drunk, jammed the camera on the first shot so that each picture was over-laid by the next. I had fallen asleep with my contacts in the week before and cut my cornea, so I had a huge patch over my eye. I removed it just before heading to the front of the church, but was blind as a bat! I could have been marrying almost anyone wearing Dress Blues.
My best friend threw me a reception at her home. Someone used spray paint to write “Just Married” on David’s new Mustang. Just after cutting the cake another friend’s water broke. While my Matron of Honor rushed her to the hospital, my new groom and I went to get her husband, David, on the other side of the base. What followed was a classic comedy skit. While my husband parked the car, the soon-to-be daddy and I went up to the maternity ward. As the elevator doors opened David hurried in front of me to the desk. Almost hyperventilating he told the nurse on duty that his wife was having a baby … just as I walked up in my wedding gown! It took a bit of explaining before they ushered him to his wife’s room just in time. My bouquet became an arrangement for Susan and her new baby.
Oh no!! This is crazy!
My husband’s Camaro was ruined with the “Just Married” writings all over it, too. He was none too happy about that. We spent a lot of Saturdays working on trying to clean it.
I’m sorry that your wedding day wasn’t what you hoped it would be or wanted. My MIL tried to control everything and although I DID get my way…I have a little control issue of my own when it comes to my affairs…my main memories of the event are stressful. I have beautiful pictures and it was the beginning of my life with my best friend, so in that, it was good. But when I think of weddings, I don’t think happy thoughts. I think stress and if it weren’t for the great pictures, I’d think not worth it. Eloping may not have been a bad idea! :) ha!
My focus was so immature when I got married. I wanted all that stuff and now I cringe when I think it. Good for you and Tim for being so young yet being so wise.
ah! we had similar weddings. I try not to get down on it, chalking it up to getting married young. And you looked stunning!
I also paid less than $150 for my dress. I liked it, but didn’t love it. I had a little money my grandfather left me. We used some of that plus another $1000 from my Dad to pay for the whole thing. Because we were planning it and paying for it, no one objected when we made all the decisions. No wedding cake? Fine. No bridesmaids? Fine. Cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate instead of finger sandwiches and punch? Fine!
That was seven years ago, and the only thing I’d do over would be to hire a better photographer. I get sad everytime I look at our photos (which isn’t that often any more, honestly). We hired someone my inlaws new from church. He was a photographer by profession, but I realized later that he was good at photographing landscapes and “things”. He was not good at photographing people. I would probably have known that if I’d asked to see his portfolio, but I was just too naive and trusting. Oh well, live and learn.
I feel sad about our wedding photos too. They were okay, but not outstanding.
Oh…and cinnamon rolls w/ hot chocolate sounds delightful! I don’t know why everyone insists on having huge, expertly decorated, too-too-sweet cakes anyway.
Gary and I eloped when we were 19 and 20 years old. My family lives in another state and his family has a tradition of eloping. His grandparents did and were married for 60 years, his parents did and they have been married for 35 years. So they weren’t surprised when we told them that we wanted to!
We went to the court house with his sister and future husband (as witnesses) and said our vows. It was NOT the best day of my life, in fact there was a man trying to jump off a building when we walked out, so there was police and bystanders everywhere! I would’ve wanted my family there, perhaps a very small wedding (with only our immediate family) up on top of the mountains. We have talked about renewing our vows on our 10 year anniversay (we are approaching our 8th) with our family and friends present that have been with us through our journey and supported us!
I fogot to add how sweet the two of you look, so in love, in your wedding picture! I giggle when I look at our picture we took outside near the court house. We were so young and crazy in love!
Now I want to see that picture! Perhaps you should start a blog and share the whole story (plus, the photo)? ;)
My dress had a price tag of $900, but my mom offered the boutique owner $750 cash on the spot for it, and she took it!
I liked it a lot, but I can’t say I LOVED it. It was the only dress my mother and I could agree on (and my mom was paying for it, as we were also very young and broke, so she had a say).
It was lovely, but not the dress of my dreams. And even at $750, I’m a bit embarrassed that it cost that much, though I do realize that dresses can easily go over $3,000. Still, $750 is a lot for a dress I wore for about 4 hours.
My wedding dress was under $500. The whole wedding was under $5,000 (including wedding dinner and two receptions). Everything was just as I imagined except my bouquet! So stupid but that’s the one thing I wish I could change. :)
My dress was cheap too, and I kind of wish I’d splurged a little more on it. Oh well. Oh–and a wedding of only 275 people? Sweet! We invited 450, and had about 375 show up. RIDICULOUS. I tried to talk Noel into a small destination wedding, but he wanted a big church affair, and I have a huge family, so all of the sudden I was writing millions of invitations. :)
That IS a big wedding! We invited 375 people and ended up with 275 attendees. (Not our style at all).
That said, we did appreciate everyone’s love (it is good to be loved).
Ahhh….I know so many who would have done the day differently now that they look back on it. I don’t think you are petty. As girls, we are brought up in a society where a wedding is supposed to be the most magical, sparkly, fancy, fairy tale-ish day of our lives – but who came up with that?! My wedding was nothing like I ‘thought’ it would be, but I am SO thankful for that. It always thought I would have a big wedding, a beautiful dress, etc…but God had different plans! Turns out, I was to meet my husband in New Zealand, get married on the beach in New Zealand with about 40 of our friends from there in attendance. My dress was $30 from Ross (I kid you not). The most expensive part of the day was my flight to New Zealand! Our New Zealand friends (family) offered to help with flowers, pictures, a pot luck reception. One of my students from the Bible School we worked at made our cake…it was a combination of great gifts and love. It was so special. When we returned to the States after our honeymoon in NZ, we had a simple reception here for all of our friends/family and showed a video that one of our amazing friends made for us. I blogged about it here: http://lettners.blogspot.com/2009/03/5-years-in.html
Regardless if your day was not what you planned or wanted, the best part is that you are with an amazing man of God who LOVES you MORE today than he did on that special wedding day (and I KNOW you know this :)! You’re almost ten years in and it is just getting better and better! So looking forward to hearing part 2!
My experience sounds somewhat similar. We were broke, and my parents were willing to pay $4,000 for everything I needed. They said that what we didn’t spend, we could keep, so we scrimped everywhere we could. We ended up only spending $1,000. My dress was a hand-me-down from my sister, so it was free. It didn’t quite fit me, and I wasn’t in love with it, but it was free and modest and that’s what was important to me. All of the boutonnieres were handmade. My cake was delicious and beautiful, but free because my aunt made it. My bouquet was a gift from someone at my church. It was beautiful…and free. I look back now and sometimes wish that I could have had the wedding of my dreams, but honestly we needed the money and in the end, being married to my best friend was the most important detail of the day.
Great blog! Brings back memories. Here are some tips for finding locally made work for wedding & bridal shower gifts..http://blog.sidestreetstudio.com/wood/9-tips-for-finding-the-perfect-wedding-gift/
P.S. The one big thing that I DO regret not getting was a professional photographer. We had my husband’s uncle take the pictures and they were horrible. We can’t re-do that day and it’s sad to me that all of our pictures look like snap shots that a child could have taken. Being a photographer now, it makes me somewhat envious when I take all of these pictures for the bride and groom and end up with these treasures for them to love the rest of their lives.
We have that same regret. I always give this advice to bride-to-be: “If you’re only going to prioritize one thing, make it photography.” Flowers wilt. Dresses go out of style. Favors are thrown away. But pictures are treasured forever.
We tried to be thrifty at our wedding as well, but ours still cost over 10K – we wanted a church wedding with everyone there and it’s just hard to cut costs sometimes. I LOVED my dress – I felt like a princess in it – it cost about $320 – we actually got it at a store that was going out of business so it was a $800 dress, so I was happy with it.
(we eloped)
Off topic, kinda, but you both looked SO peachy faced young in those pictures. Probably because you were! So friggin’ adorable!
Nell
Even reading all these comments makes me tear up a bit, My husband and I got married by the justice of peace because we couldn’t afford a wedding. I wore a black V neck shirt and some black dress pants. Nobody gave us any wedding gifts and after somebody offered to take us out to Ponderosa(a steak house/buffet place)…gross. I am really depressed even talking about it. So now whenever weddings are mentioned I get really depressed and mopey. I don’t like it because I want to be happy for my friends and my sister and brother when they get married but I know I will be depressed because I never got to have a wedding. Now I feel like even if we did have a wedding people would think it was stupid because we are already married and also because with three kids and a house and everything the money would be better used on bills and other things. So I guess I would be grateful if I had a dress at all, no matter how much it cost. Our ceremony cost $25.
UGGGHHH!!! You can’t do this to me! I am going out of town this afternoon and won’t have internet access until Monday! The suspense is going to kill me! Well, so, my wedding dress was around $600. Add in the veil, tiara, tulle petticoat, and necessary undergarments for a grand total of $1000.00!! Totally stupid! I loved my dress. Don’t get me wrong. It was the one I found online, tried on first, and ended up going back to after trying on several more. It was beautiful. But, in hindsight, I know now that my parents did not have that kind of money to spend. They did, though, for me. Because they wanted the day to be everything I wanted. I wish I could go back and do the whole entire thing over again. I would have done EVERYTHING differently…except with the same groom.;) So much wasted money and stress….
I’m so looking forward to the next installment! We had a small wedding on an ‘early-20′s budget straight out of college and headed for Peace Corps.’ With a tiny bit of help from my mother and my father, we cobbled together a beautiful wedding overlooking the ocean for less than $1500. We didn’t need much to pretty things up because the ocean is gorgeous anyhow. And almost every year at some point we end up back in our hometown and picnic at the same spot again, savoring the same beauty of it all and simply remembering and honoring it all. It’s so fun to take our now-three kids there painting a picture of it all for them.
And, my dress was never something I thought about. I tried my moms on from her hope chest and it fit. My mom had sewed it for her first wedding. She’s on her third now, so not too much sentimentality there…but she sewed it and she married my father in it…and she was young too! I liked it but really loved that i was re-using something and saving money, and most importantly, getting married to my love. Heck, my marriage ring to this day is a turquoise native american ring from Sf that I stumbled upon a year before we married for $50. I still get compliments on it quite often, and I love it. But, it’s ‘not traditional either.
I guess when you pay for most everything yourself, parents can’t have too much say in it…and without much funding ourselves, we just made decisions with what we had.
I occasionally get a twinge of “ahhh, this wedding is a real wedding” when attending “real” weddings these days (danging, big cake, music, everything fancified and pretty), but when it comes down to it, none of that fits us. We are more frugal, happy to re-use people who love life and people and spending money doesn’t factor in there as a huge enjoyment. And we don’t have the $ to spend anyhow. And going to weddings these days is like going to big-happy-parties to celebrate love and marriage for others.
So, totally can’t wait to read the next installment. Even though the tone was a bit sad on this one, from having a small wedding and making decisions (i.e. do not hire family friends if at all possible) that we’d definitely not re-do, I can totally relate.
Cheers for celebrating our decades of marriage now instead of planning huge weddings, right! :)
I love that your wedding ring isn’t all diamonds and glitter. Another friend of mine that recently got engaged chose a non-traditional, non-expensive ring…and I admire her for it. It’s unique, gorgeous, and fits her style exactly. Who says you have to spend bug bucks on engagement/marriage rings? Certainly not me!
I found my dress off the rack for $500 and I loved it….I had a few alterations done and it was exactly what I wanted my wedding dress to look like. I ended up selling it just a few months later. My wedding day was a small affair and everything that I could have hoped for.
Everyone loves telling about their wedding! What a lot of fun comments.
My Mom and I MADE my dress. We had such a blast working on it together – what a special way to bond. Although, truth to tell, it turned out to be slightly odd. Fit and construction were good, but the design was a little hmmm… unusual. (However, I hope my daughter uses the fabric to make her own wedding dress, eventually.)
It was a fabulous day – the best party I’ve ever given. Great memories to last a lifetime.
I can’t wait to read part II!
My wedding dress was $900 and I was in love with it! Looking back, though, now that we have kids…it seems too extravagant! I also paid over $100 to have it professionally boxed.
However, I wouldn’t change the wedding we had for anything! We had about 275 guests and they were all friends and family who were special to us. It was a terrific party!
I would totally redo our wedding too. I did love my dress. I liked it in the store and we bought it. Later I was looking back and wedding ideas I had cut out of magazines and I had picked the exact dress. However, I would absolutely redo the bridesmaids dresses and let them pick something they liked. My maid of honor married a couple of years later and our dresses were from Banana Republic (unfortunately 3 babies later I can’t quite fit in it anymore- yet) they were pretty and actually reusable. I would love to have an open ceremony to all in the church with punch and cake afterward then an intimate dinner later just for family and very very close friends. All in all though the important part is that we’re married.
I’ve been noticing a new trend for bridesmaids to pick their own dresses (matching or not). I think it adds color and personality to the ceremony…and it makes the wearer feel so much more comfortable.
YES!
My husband and I, another couple, and my Mother (who was flown out to Louisiana by her sisters) were at my wedding. My mother brought me a white sundress from Fashion Bug, and that’s what I wore.
We were married in the backyard of the Justice of the Peace, who was also the Dean at my Community College.
After the ceremony, we went back to our apartment and ate red velvet cake from Albertson’s.
Best. Day. Ever.
We spend about 10k for our wedding. It was the best party I’ve ever had. Great friends, wonderful food, karaoke and dancing. It was at a historic meeting house, gorgeous fall day. We did not do favors, instead donated money to a charity in honor of our guests. I am amazed that you had a wedding for 2k with 275 guests! I can’t even imagine how that is possible!
My brother and sister-in-law did something similar for their wedding. Instead of registering at Target or Bed Bath & Beyond, they had their guests contribute to charity : water. Very cool.
That’s really amazing, Stephanie! Are they doing well? I am sure! :)
My dress was around $700. My wedding was relatively costly. I’m lucky and thankful that my parents were able to shell out for it with very few “requirements.” My mom’s one “must have” was that I couldn’t wear white flip flops for the ceremony. They were fine for the reception. Looking back, glad I had the cute heels. My dad’s requirement was an open bar. Done. I loved my dress. My godfather officiated and we wrote every word together. The location was a mansion in Northern California, and it was gorgeous.
We definitely could have pared down our wedding, and it would have been lovely. But I got everything I wanted that day, and I know how fortunate I am for that…
Can’t wait to read part 2!
You had 275 people at your wedding and it cost less than $2000! That is something to write about right there. By the way your dress is beautiful and you and Tim look so young! Don’t we all?
My wedding dress was one of the first ones I tried on but I was not going to get it because it was just about the first one and that cannot be the one – right? After that I spent a few months trying on probablly 50 dresses and I eventually went back and purchased that first one. It cost about $600.
I am right in the middle of what you were going through. I didn’t want a big wedding since it is my second but I eloped the first time so I have to give my parents their baby daughters wedding. I wound up getting a white bridesmaid dress and decided to have it in my backyard. We’re still working on the details but still have 3 months, so plenty of time. :)
Congrats to you! Be sure to read Part II because I give my top wedding advice for brides-to-be: http://metropolitanmama.net/2010/09/my-wedding-dress-part-ii/. :)
OH my goodness! You guys are sooooooooo cute! I totally took control of my wedding it was super cheep. I didn’t care about all the traditional stuff. The total wedding cost was probably around $2000 but a quarter of that was my dress. I did really want a nice dress also.
Sometimes I just want to put my dress on again for the fun of it.
Wedding days are great!
You should! I just tried on my dress a few days ago. And – it still fit (barely). ;)
Now, I’m trying to figure out what to *do* with my wedding dress. At first, I thought that I’d save it so that my girls could try it on some day. But I’m leaning against that because I don’t want to spend $100+ to have it cleaned and boxed…when the dress itself only cost $99.
I’m hoping to donate the dress to a charity of some kind. I need to google it and see what options are available…
You guys look so young and ADORABLE in that picture! You look adorable, and yes your dress was pretty!
275 is a BIG wedding, wow!
My dress was, um really expensive, and so was my wedding. I bought my dress off the rack of a small couture boutique in LA. I bet it was 2,500? We got married in Long Beach at an old fashioned womens club, and I bet you my wedding cost close to 30K (I actually don’t know because my parents paid for it, and we didn’t have a budget, we just tried to pick the middle package with every vendor, and cut out some things, added others)
I LOVED my wedding. It felt like a dream come true. But, I have changed so much from the “old me”. If I was to get married NOW, I would pick a small wedding, with our closest family and friends, with tons of hand made and special items. The decorations would be simple, and thoughtful and original. :)
I however wouldn’t change one thing- we had a live band, and we danced the night away, and everyone (about 150) stayed until midnight, even the grandparents! I would want to do that again. :)
Can’t wait to hear the happy ending!!
But yes, same with my dress. I would love to wear something more simple, vintage-ey now instead of “glamorous princess” thing I was going for back then.
What a fun post idea. I know so many people who would have done things differently now. But we’re all older now, at a different place in our lives, so it’s natural that we would make different decisions now. We got married older (33 and 37) and I had a custom dress made in LA and it was beautiful but didn’t fit right! The shop also put the wrong bustle on it so we couldn’t get the bustle up for the cocktail reception. I was in tears with 4 women under my dress trying to figure it out. In the end we got lucky – the shop was open ( we were back east) and they told us how to do it. If I were doing it now I’d buy something off the rack and be done. I definitely feel like it was money wasted now. We had a gorgeous wedding, though with 120 people in a cathedral with a horse and carriage and it was fabulous- would do it all over again tomorrow if I had to (: Looking forward to installment 2!
My dad actually offered to give me the money he was chipping in for the wedding if we went and eloped. I wanted to. Sadly, my exhusband did not. My first wedding was much like yours – more for other people. I had a big white dress that made me feel like a princess…but I’m not a princess kind of girl. The marriage didn’t last.
My second wedding…the real thing. I married the right man this time and did it the way we wanted to do it. We had an outdoor wedding, in the park, on a gorgeous fall day. Only people we truly cared about instead of lots of friends of parents out of obligation. We told everyone to wear jeans and be comfortable. We dressed up but were still casual (off white, simple luncheon type dress for me, sportscoat for him) then changed into our jeans for the “reception”. The reception was a BBQ in a picnic shelter. The kids played football. The grown ups chatted. I actually got to spend quality time with everyone there (unlike my first wedding). It was perfect.
My advice for brides would be: do it your way and remember the wedding day isn’t of great import…it is the marriage we should all spend months focusing on and preparing for.
Well, my dress is the sad part of my day too, but mainly because I picked the wrong person to make it. :(
See, my dad bought 25 yards of silk when he was in Hong Kong during Vietnam. I was supposed to be for his younger sister to make a wedding dress. But she didn’t end up getting married until 1987 when I was 7 and being a career woman bought a designer gown (something like Vera Wang, etc). So, somewhere along the line I heard about this fabric and decided I wanted it for my wedding. I believe this was actually when I was between boyfriends. So I called my aunt and a couple weeks later a package showed up on our doorstep, it was still in the original plastic from Hong Kong!
When my hubby and I decided to get married on a pretty quick time span while finishing grad school I knew I wouldn’t have time or the energy to make it myself and living 6 hours from my parents it probably wouldn’t have worked for my mom to make it. She’s good, but not a seamstress.
I had a friend getting married using a local seamstress to make her bridesmaid’s dresses so I got her name. She made a mock-up and with a few changes I thought it would be good…
Well, I paid her about $100 for her time and it was the worst mistake of my life. Come to find out she was a costume seamstress for children’s ballet/theater which means things really don’t have to look all that great when you’re up on stage. None of the seams met, the sleeves were too tight – I could only lift my arms barely level with my shoulders, and the worst part was the front puckered badly.
Originally I’d hoped to have a friend at home make it, but she was finishing up beauty school and didn’t have time either. She did help me salvage the neckline by making some tucks and adding some beading, but it was such a disappointment.
The pictures turned out okay (and we had a horrid photographer, but that’s a story for another day), but it was the one down spot on my day. Everything else was perfect, complete with butterflies (provided by nature/God) flying over head while my dad walked me down the aisle.
I loved our wedding. I’d probably do some things differently if I was planning it now (after a wedding this summer I think all weddings should end with fireworks) but all in all it was a pretty good party.
My dress was awesome – it was my mother’s wedding dress, and it was made by my paternal grandmother. It didn’t cost me anything, although I should really get it repaired and cleaned.
Our big splurge was a custom cake with frogs on top. It cost us $500. I think it’s safe to say it’s the most expensive cake I’ll ever buy.
Oh…I read part two before scrolling down to read part one, and this just brought me to tears. Your wedding sounds like my wedding…in that my wedding was not the wedding that my husband & I would have planned, if we had done what we truly wanted in our hearts. Our wedding was the wedding of my mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law, and aunt-in-law’s dreams. Not mine.
We’ve already decided that someday down the road we want to renew our vows, and have an intimate gathering to celebrate our marriage, which is what it’s all about, anyways!
My first wedding felt more like my mother’s than mine. But the second time around it was just so very us. It was wonderful. And my dress was $100 or $150…I forget which.
I keep thinking about the fact that you referred to yourself as petty. I don’t like it when people name-call my friends!!!
You were NOT petty to cry! You were in a situation that was very important to you, and you felt that your voice was not being heard. That dress was a symbol of what was going on in regards to planning the wedding. Crying was a completely understandable reaction. Refusing it would have been normal! Instead you wore it with style and class.
I want you take back that mean thing you said!
:) Melinda
Thanks for making me smile, Melinda!
As is so often the case, you’re right. It is perfectly acceptable to grieve over the loss of a wonderful wedding (while at the same time being grateful for a healthy marriage) just as it is acceptable to grieve over the loss of a wonderful birth experience (while at the same time being grateful for a healthy baby). Thank you for that important reminder.
I loved my wedding dress. It wasn’t at all what I had dreamed of. My girlfriend is an AMAZING dress maker and has done some stunning wedding gowns. I always planned on her making my dress, and before she was big, I’d modeled for her advertisements and had been promised a dress as payment. I went to her to see if she could make my dress (I planned on paying her) but we had less than two months until our wedding and her husband said that she didn’t have the time to do a discounted dress blah blah blah. So, I found a beautiful and simple dress online at Nicole Miller. I spent just under $200 and absolutely love it. It’s very me.
I think once it was all said and done (alterations, vail, shoes, etc.) my dress cost $250. I loved it. It was simple…very me…very much the theme of our wedding. We have a very talented group of friends, so we were able to have all of our friends be part of the wedding (one did the catering, another the photography, the flowers, etc.). Our wedding was in the afternoon, so by 5pm, we were on our own. We loved getting to have the whole evening together at a B&B where they served us a candlelight dinner and we were able to share a meal and talk about our wedding. It was wonderful. And, 5 years later, we are very much in love!
My wedding dress cost $300, and was the first one I tried on. I absolutely loved it from the second I wore it, but both my mom and I thought, “You don’t buy the first one, right?” so I kept looking, but in the end, I went back to it and bought it. We had quite a lot of people at our wedding (I think close to 300, maybe a bit more) because both my husband and I grew up in the same church literally since we were babies, so we invited the entire church. The number of people at the reception who made comments like “I used to change your diapers and now you guys are married!” was alarmingly high! But it was wonderful, and so much fun! The only thing I would change looking back is the photographer- I was trying to be extremely frugal for my parents (I’m the oldest of 3 girls!) so when a friend offered to do the pictures for free, I took him up on it, but unfortunately I really got what I paid for there. I wish someone had given me the advice you just gave- the photographer is worth the splurge!
Aww… that is sad. But I think when you marry young, you don’t really know what you want.
My wedding was pretty much exactly what I wanted at the time, except I wanted a longer reception party with dancing and fun, but my parents were not into drinking and dancing and it was pretty short ( to me ) and my husband was just eager to get out of there and get on with things. Ahem. :-)
BUT. I loved my dress and my flowers and my photographer (although now I’d want something less posed, but it wasn’t really the trend at the time) and I had my best friends and family around me. I should have had a smaller bridal party, but that’s only a small thing. Live and learn, right!?
okay, going to read the second post now…
Ah, yes – the drinking & dancing. I wanted both as well, but my parents were of the same opinion as yours.