Nina vs Wedding Ideals

If you're reading this, I have to thank you. I haven't been a regular blogger, and the theme and style of this here blog has run the gamut from being obnoxious and snarky to introspective and gloomy. I guess that's what happens when you start blogging at 19 and keep up ( in the loosest meaning of the term) blogging at age 25. 

Irregardless (it's actually a word now..) despite popular belief, about a month ago, a very wonderful and special man asked me to be his wife. As I type those words, they still feel unreal. Yours truly, the snarky horse, the people observer and explorer of worlds, is settling down. That doesn't mean I have to do it without a fight, of course. And we all know how keen I am at being against something.

Lucky for me, as soon as that ring was placed on my ring finger, an entire universe of things to be against blossomed into a lush garden.  The question was inevitably asked, at least three hundred sixty two million times. "When's the wedding?" And subsequently, "What colors are you choosing?" and then, "Have you started planning yet?". 

I'm a girl, so the answer is "Oh, just about since I was 5." 

However, this girl grew up and became a woman, in a country dragging out of a recession and working part time. And after sitting at my share of wedded bliss receptions and ceremonies, I decided (surprise!) I don't want a traditional wedding. And no, it's not because I'm a hipster and decided to rent an airplane hanger where I hire indie bands as entertainment to strum shoe box guitars and cry into a tuba. I'm also not about having kegs as chairs and stalks of corn as centerpieces just to be "different".. 

It's because I cringe at the amount of money that people willingly pour into a wedding. And I already have an added layer of complexity thanks to having a fiance in South America.

Tell me, why do you have to have 500 people at your reception? Ten years from now, will you even still be around these people? Will you still even live in the same area? And why does everyone have to be fed a 50 course meal by a posh set of hands? I just don't get it. The average bride & groom drop a nice 25-30 G's on a wedding. That's enough for a lovely down payment for a home, or to feed a number of villages in East Africa. 

Anyway- to each their own, right? If you want to spend a fortune on a few hours, it's your world. I just never heard anyone say, "Wow, remember Angie's wedding 20 years ago? That five layer cake was delicious!" 

Maybe I just don't hang in those circles, which is fine by me. 

I happen to see something lovely in the simple union of two people who love each other, and may not have a lot to impress hoards of strangers, but have two key ingredients: a lot of love and creativity, and the mutual understanding that an entire future of days is waiting to be lived together, bound by love and an absence of wedding day debt.

Sure, a wedding day should be special, and it should be a marked occasion, a day different from the rest. But it's also at the end of such day, simply the beginning. And despite the entire industry targeted at making me feel bad if I can't afford $500,000 worth of flowers- I will refuse to conform to those ideals. 

I will, however, finagle, bargain, and DIY until I die.