When your friend tells you they are engaged:
When she gives a speech about how she isn’t a typical bride and won’t give in to the wedding industrial complex:
When she starts talking about the food she wants to serve:
When a coworker tells your friends that her destination wedding in Mexico was very affordable:
When she says that paying $900 to attend a weekend wedding in Mexico is quite affordable:
When she says that $900 is extra affordable because her wedding can be your vacation!
When you realize you will have to cut back on your carefully planned vacation in order to attend her wedding:
But through it all, she’s your friend, so you’ll scrimp and save. Because you want to be there for her.
It’s only December and Wedding Season 2013 is already giving me feels.
-
Inspired
-
Smart
-
Tickled
-
Hungry
-
Empathetic
-
Smash!
![Avatar of [E] Sally Lawton](http://images.persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/avatars/284/801ec0bacfd48df87560e4e0a5e1b0b3-bpthumb.jpg){kind=avatar}
I’m pretty sure my vacations for the next two years are all going to be dictated by weddings! But…none of my friends (or ) are having destination weddings! Unfortunately, it feels like all weddings are destination weddings these days, as no one lives close to home anymore! We struggled to find a venue that was sort of equally far from everyone, as our families and friends are all in different states from each other and from us.
Haven’t had to do the destination wedding, but I did end up a bridesmaid in a wedding that was two days of driving away from where I live. The bride was at least aware enough to let me pick out and buy my own bridesmaid dress, and I was able to share some of the trip costs with other family members going to the wedding as well. Still one of the other bridesmaids who would have been coming from out of town had to bow out because she couldn’t afford it, and the bride was pissy about it for a little bit, until she realized that maybe, just maybe, coming from halfway across the country is a bit of an expense.
This summed up my entire destination experience perfectly. I was asked to be a bridesmaid at one, it was $3200, in April of the year that I/the bride/etc was graduating from undergrad. Needless to say, me and my broke ass didn’t go. I find the whole destination wedding thing to be in bad taste maybe? If you want to have just your immediate families and all love hanging out together, then awesome. But it seems to me that it shifts the cost of the wedding from the people getting married to the people attending in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable.
I need tires, groceries, gas. But having a year to plan and save makes a huge difference! I have always wanted to go to a wedding like that, but when I have to scrimp and save just to go on a ski trip…Mexico would be so out of the question. I have been saving for a year to send my son to Disney Land with my parents. So I totally get that expensive trip in the future feeling.
Perfect gifs are perfect.
I thought the whole point of destination weddings is that you get to go away and get married without anyone around to bother you!
People getting married absolutely have the right to do whatever they want for their special day. They also have to understand that the rest of the world may or may not choose to be part of it, depending on how difficult/expensive/horrible they make it. Destination weddings have their place, but telling someone it’ll be their vacation just reeks of “You can totally wear this bridesmaid’s dress again!”
My new plan is to go to a justice of the peace and buy everyone tacos afterwards. Neil DeGrasse Tyson will of course officiate.
I did a justice of the peace wedding! We turned up in a park, there were about 25 people there, and 20 minutes later, we were done. Then people came over for cake.
I love that! I’ve always wanted to serve pancakes and waffles at a wedding. But something simple like that sounds perfect.
We were 19 and therefore everyone thought we were insane (they… kinda had a point, but STILL) so we didn’t really want to ask anyone for money for a big ceremony. Plus, you know, that would’ve required planning and effort. We spent the money on the honeymoon instead and 10+ years later, here we are.*
*Most people should probably not get married at 19 though.
Got married in a park by the mayor. Had it catered by a local restaurant. Music was provided by my iPod hooked up to speakers. There were maybe 25 people there, all immediate family and three really close friends. I thought I wanted something bigger when I was making the arrangements, but looking back, I wouldn’t have done it any other way. (Except maybe splurging on a photographer b/c my photog friend that took our pictures seems to have lost her memory cards that contained all of our pics.)
I agree- plan as you like, but um, yeah- NO. At this point in my life, there is no way in hell I’d be able to attend that kind of wedding, regardless of who it was. Dictating a person’s vacation, by it’s very nature, makes it not a vacation for the person in question. What the hell?
My brother in law got married in Hawaii last year, and they invited no one. A month later, they had a FANTASTIC party at their house, and had photobooks from their wedding/honeymoon. It was stunning, and I loved it. And I love that it was just a weekend trip to Chicago.
We went to Hawaii and didn’t invite anyone too! Our families were all over the place, some with small children, so anywhere we had it would have required a lot of people to travel (and likely would have required us to help some of them afford it). Between my husband having a ridiculous amount of airline miles from travelling for work and staying in condos/cheap hotels instead of luxury resorts, we did 3.5 weeks in Hawaii for less than a regular wedding would have been. The only downside was that we never did get around to throwing the afterparty, so no one really got us anything.
My brother told me that he was doing a destination wedding. I started laughing and told him: “well, it’s a good thing mom and dad will pay to make sure I’m there!”. But then a month later he told me that he and the wife couldn’t find a place they liked with an availability they wanted. Win for me!
*nods*
Well, at least you got some notice, and it wasn’t like, “And we’re getting married in 3 months!”
the gifs were brilliant and I feel you so, so much.