I know it’s cheesy, but my wedding day was one of the happiest days of my life.
Our wedding was truly a celebration of our love. It was about our commitment to each other, and we wanted our close family and friends to witness and share the joy of our union.
Yes, we could have skipped the whole thing altogether, especially since we didn’t have a lot of money to pull off a wedding extravaganza anyway. Lots of people do, and I don’t think that says anything about their love and commitment. Also, a big, fancy wedding is simply not our style.
We thought long and hard about it. At the end of the day, it was very important for us to have our friends and family with us on such a special ocasion.
Our mini-wedding was perfect for us. We enjoyed it so much that we actually have plans to start an adorable tradition… But we can leave it at that until 2014.
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There’s lots of reasons why we decided for a mini-wedding.
#1 There’s the guest list issue.
What happens when you get hitched abroad is that most of your friends and family will not be able to make it to your wedding.
That is, unless you have rich friends who can easily get off work, which wasn’t our case.
Without enough people, there just can’t be a big wedding.
#2 There’s the money issue.
On average, couples spend $20,000 for their wedding in the US.
Our budget was only a small fraction of that. Even with the help from our families.
#3 There’s the generational issue.
When our parent’s got married, weddings were a huge part of a family’s social calendar. Everyone remotely connected to the family got invited, regardless of relationship with the couple.
As most young couples, we respectfully disagree. We wanted our wedding to be about celebrating our commitment with our loved ones. People that we know are always going to be there for us — with a few exceptions, of course.
#4 There’s personal choice.
Matt and I are very particular people.
We wanted our wedding to be different, to be very us. We didn’t want our wedding to be just another one. We visited countless country clubs, golf clubs, rental spaces… We just couldn’t convince ourselves to like the traditional wedding venues in town.
We fell in love with a historic mansion that could only accomodate 100 people — but it would be crowded. And we just knew we were destined to have a mini-wedding.
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So, ladies, listen up: don’t let anyone tell you that you must have a huge, expensive wedding in order to be happy.
Trust me.
