Good Morning! Wedding Plans needed!

[Guest]

I am also a single mom.

I hear all the time that weddings take a year or more to plan and

that they cost $20,000 and up. My daughter had a small wedding (only

about 40 guests) and it cost us less than $1,000. We put it together

in about a month.

First of all, we did everything we could ourselves. She picked out

some beautiful note cards and asked me to hand write the invitations

which I did. We made her veil, unity candle, all table decorations,

and bows for the church pews. (My daughter and I had taken a bow-

making class several years before at a craft store. It is amazing

how easy it is to make fancy bows at a fraction of what you pay for

them from a florist, etc.)

Her dress was not a “regular” fussy bridal gown, but a beautiful

white suit with a long skirt and gold trim on the jacket. Very

elegant and classy looking. She said when she saw it that it struck

her as something Princess Diana would have worn. She got it off a

mark-down rack at Catherines, for only $60.oo.

Flowers: Instead of a bouquet, my daughter carried a single lavendar

rose with ferns, baby’s breath and lots of ribbon streamers. It was

so pretty. Her bridesmaids each carried a single pink sweetheart

rose, gussied up with ribbon and ferns. The basket the flower girl

carried was an old one I had in my basement. We spray-painted it

white (with paint I already had on hand) and added bows to match the

bride’s and attendants’ flowers. The florist charged us only a couple

of dollars for enough rose petals to fill the little basket.

She told the bridesmaids and her little flower girl she was not going

to ask them to spend a lot of money on something they would never

wear again, and in fact, she said they did not have to even buy

anything new. She said her colors were pink and lavendar and asked

them to wear anything they liked in those colors. . . . .Needless to

say, her bridesmaids’ dresses didn’t match, but they all looked great.

Her cousin’s husband is a prefessional photographer, and he took all

the pictures and gave us the film – we had it developed and made

whatever pictures we wanted from the negatives.

The reception was held in the church hall. We had a buffet dinner

and I made almost all the food mysaelf. I ordered chicken and had it

delivered. But I made everything else, and we also had ham,

sausages with peppers and onions, green beans almondine, garlic

potatoes, parmesan noodles, tossed salad, vegetable trays and cheese

trays. (I used to work in a deli, so I knew how to make professional

trays.)

The cake came from a grocery store bakery — it was gorgeous.

One of my friends offered to supply us with trays of home-made

cookies as well for the cake table, and we were delighted to take her

up on the offer! ……

At each place setting there was a white chocolate rose on a silk

flower stem with green leaves. It had a cellophane wrapper around

the candy part and was tied with pink and lavendar ribbon

streamers. My daughter got all the supplies at a cake and candy

supply store, and made them all herself. Very pretty and very

inexpensive to make.

When I went back to work the next week after the wedding a man I

worked with whose daughter was married the same day as my daughter

had the nerve to ask me how much I had spent on the wedding. When I

told him less than $1,000, he scoffed and said it couldn’t have been

much of a wedding for that — he said he had paid out a little over

$25,000 for his daughter’s wedding. Well, my daughter had a

beautiful wedding and we had a wonderful time. It was very sweet

wedding and we got tons of compliments about it. In fact, people are

still saying how nice it was!

…….and, at the end of the day, my daughter was just as much

married as the girl with the $25,000 wedding. And we actually had a

lot of fun putting it all together!

This is just my personal opinion, but for whatever it’s worth, I

think poeple today have lost the meaning of what the wedding is.

They have turned it into a big show and a big way to get gifts. I

could gag every time I hear people say something about it being “the

bride’s day”. A wedding should be a solemn occasion – a beginning of

a couple’s life together. (Yeah, I know most of them have been

living together already and many of them have babies, and yet they

have a big church wedding. That doesn’t seem to offend anyone any

more. Why is that?) And the reception is a party to celebrate with

the newly weds.

Oh, by the way, I didn’t mention earlier in this post that by having

the reception in hte church fellowship, there was no alcohol served.

As I said before, they were just as married as the couple at the

wedding wiht the open bar. The difference was that I did not have

the expense of paying for the alcohol and paying a bartender. My

daughter did not want alcohol there. She had been to weddings (we

all have!) where someone got drunk, some where fighting broke out.

So she did not want to take the chance of anyone spoiling a lovely

evening.

I hope your daughter will have a beautiful and meaningful wedding. I

hope it is not the happiest day of her life, but the beginning of a

lifetime of happiness!!!!

Best wishes!

[Author]

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