How Wedding Planning Almost Destroyed Our Desire to Have a Wedding in the First Place

I met my husband after ending a tumultuous four-year relationship. During those years, more than one friend would say to me, “You are losing yourself.” In restaurants, I kept my cell phone on the table, and when hours passed and we had not spoken, I would speculate that he was spending time with an ex-girlfriend, or perhaps courting a new one. The relationship had offered no security, and it had been painful.

By contrast, in my relationship with my husband, I never once had to question what was real and how much we loved one another. However, during the year of our engagement, the details of planning a wedding overshadowed the formative feelings that drew us together; I had not expected that, for us, wedding planning would dilute our initial enthusiasm to have a wedding at all. It was not until the eleventh hour that we righted our course, renewed.

12 months to plan a wedding

We read that a year between engagement and marriage is ideal. To my parents and grandparents, who anticipate marriages, births, and graduations as the best conclusive evidence that their offspring are thriving, I had waited long enough. Their questions began, and we could not answer them; our families wanted to know about dates, venue, level of formality, size of guest list, and our “colors” for the day. A sense of urgency crept into the planning process, and soon each decision felt defining and consequential.

Our first plan, to get married at my father and stepmother’s home in Pennsylvania, changed when local caterers sent proposals, the lowest being seven thousand dollars beyond our anticipated price range. In Brooklyn, our hometown, we found a loft with roof access and a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline that we both liked well enough to book. A friend, trying to put these decisions into perspective, advised, “At the end of this, you are going to be married to Derek.” She shook her head airily, logistics minor compared to that most major decision.

I looked at the possibility of a cocktail party with panini stations, bruschetta stations, passed hors d’oeuvres, and an open bar, only to find that this equaled the price of a fully plated dinner. I considered buying platters from a gourmet grocery store and hiring catering staff, but a licensed bartender was not included. I went back to a Mediterranean restaurant we had consulted early on, to negotiate the price of including a meat dish for those who, we learned from our families, would feel bereft by a vegetarian menu. Should we have wine and beer, or a signature cocktail—or all three? Should tables be set up lengthwise, with rectangular banquet tables, or circular? Should we assign tables?

comparison and contrast

In the meantime, pictures of an old friend’s wedding appeared on Facebook and were gorgeous. Her veil was made from a delicate ivory lace, and the groomsmen wore paisley vests that were tan, burgundy, and green, like bottles of Chianti cradled in straw casks, the look warm and sophisticated. Each member of the bridal party wore a tailored silk dress. Together, the wedding party stood before the backdrop of a magnificent mountain. Her wedding had a sense of cohesion we could not seem to achieve. We were not working together well, and most decisions came down to budget, a truth which still pains me.

Having become quarrelsome, we booked six appointments with a couples’ counselor. We grasped quickly that our unconscious fears about our wedding, and about marriage, were impacting our decision-making abilities. We more so became partners in the planning, which was a relief, but decisions still felt unwieldy. Gathering our friends and relatives seemed like an occasion to express ourselves, and I feared we were failing.

One Sunday afternoon, six weeks before the wedding, we committed to spending the day on wedding tasks. We looked at autumn tones for floral centerpieces, with sunflowers, yellow roses, and orange lilies. The sincerity of our choice to offer one another care and attention in a time and space as endless as that washed valley had been long overshadowed by the pressure I felt to host a smartly planned and expressive event. Though we were more allied, it still seemed we had drifted so far from the day we walked hand and hand, discussing our wedding as an occasion to be shaped and imagined entirely by us.

one hundred and seventy dollars

That Sunday, Derek designed a special lighting stencil that, when fit into a stage light, would project our names in light on the brick chimney of the loft; I was looking to create a custom cocktail napkin with our names embossed in the same font as on the lighting stencil. I priced it out, and the napkins would cost one hundred and seventy dollars. Our caterer told us that we could have plain, white, cocktail napkins for seventy dollars, and I vacillated about not branding our event, thinking it would perhaps alter the distinction of the day, would be something to regret having skimped on. I told her I would think about it, and when I hung up I remembered that I live two blocks from a party supply store, which sold packs of two hundred cocktail napkins for five dollars. It was a small moment, but one of reckoning, where fantasy and reality became newly distinct from one another. In the onslaught of choices to be made and money to be parsed I had lost my own compass for making decisions, for knowing my standards of beauty, my thresholds of price, my certainty about mood.

Another friend told me that no one would remember the party. She said, “I am coming for the ceremony, which is the most important part.” A little over a month before the wedding, I hoped for us to again find and better distill the clarity and joy we felt the day we became engaged—I hoped we could feel the meaningful simplicity in letting our desire to name our commitment to one another be the most important detail, which had been long resolved. I nixed the custom cocktail napkins.

A Pink Pantsuit and a Shimmery Dress? This $40K California Wedding Is on Fire

Jess, marketing & Kelly, health professional

Sum-up of the wedding vibe: A fun, relaxed, and intimate under the stars and redwoods.

Planned budget: $35,000

Actual budget: $40,000

Number of guests: 65

Where we allocated the most funds:

Food and wine. We chose our venue for many reasons, with their phenomenal food being at the top of the list. The family style meal was amazing: Hog Island Oyster Co. oysters (freshly shucked!) and a local champagne directly following the ceremony; seated fresh pea soup, roasted chicken with polenta and braised greens, a cheese course (since we’ve never met one we didn’t like), and a gorgeous chocolate cake with cardamom caramel. We chose a white wine from a region in Italy where Jess spent a summer and a Pinot Grigio from up the road. The food, its presentation and pacing were fantastic.

Where we allocated the least funds:

We didn’t spend much on decor. We didn’t have to rent tables, linens, chairs, candles, or any of that jazz, since all those things were provided by the hotel as part of the venue fee. We knew whatever the Boonville Hotel had would be gorgeous because we admire their taste and aesthetic. It was part of what made our wedding really easy.

Our flower budget was also really modest because the venue was a garden, so we were surrounded by trees, plants, flowers, and fairy lights.

We also didn’t spend a ton of money on our wedding outfits. Kelly bought a (ever so faintly) pink Stella McCartney suit from Neiman’s and the Jess had her dress made by Julie Ireland, a San Francisco–based dress maker (based loosely on a Jenny Packham gown that was gorgeous but way over budget).

What was totally worth it:

People had a great time in the photo booth! Our friends actually gifted it to us, and we were so glad to have it. Our guests got to take a keepsake from the wedding, and we got an amazing book (that doubled as a guest book) filled with hysterical, fun photos of new and old friends who were having a great time together.

Our photographer was fantastic. Christina Richards was totally on the shot list, very professional, and her pictures were gorgeous.

The DJ really set the tone by figuring out a mash up of “99 Problems” and “Here Comes the Bride” for us to walk down the aisle to, putting together a great cocktail set featuring New Orleans jazz in honor of Jess’s dad who has passed, and playing some great dinner music that really set the atmosphere (plus killer after-dinner music that got almost everyone up and dancing).

Most of all, our wedding planner was phenomenal. Her services were gifted to us by friends as well, and she was amazing. We did a lot of the upfront planning (selecting the venue, getting the few vendors we needed, etc.) but she did a lot of the execution (table mapping, etc.) and all of the coordination. She allowed us and all our guests to have a really magical weekend (we even had guests reaching out to say how great she was).

Also worth it: we hired a sitter for people who’d brought children. We set the expectation up front (via conversations and website) that kids would leave after the cocktail reception so that adults (parents and non-parents alike) could relax. Figuring out how to facilitate that for people, in particular for a destination wedding, was critical, and hiring a sitter was the best solution.

We also really wanted to have a full weekend for our guests. We had a small dinner for family only that our officiants hosted on Thursday. We had a fun party at the Boonville Hotel’s shed on Friday night. It was a relaxed and casual taco night where old friends could reunite and new friends could be made before the big day. We also hosted a brunch on Sunday morning, which was nice to see everyone again and say thank you before everyone the hit the road.

A few things that helped us along the way:

The people at the Boonville Hotel were fantastic. We chose the venue because the food is fantastic, it’s gorgeous, and, and this is important, because the people who run it and the staff are so warm and lovely. They take such good care of weddings, brides, their guests, etc. They made it so easy—we just had to hire photographer, flowers, and DJ. They even arranged for the babysitters and a place for the kids to go to eat dinner, watch movies, and do crafty things. We did a few little extra things like chalkboard signage, but they weren’t necessary, just nice touches (including a quote from the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage).

Anything else to share:

Developing the ceremony was both one of the hardest and one of the most rewarding parts of the entire planning experience. Having a meaningful ceremony was really important to us, but because we’re not part of a religious tradition it was hard to create something that felt authentic and would be actually be meaningful. We spent a long time thinking about the tone, what we wanted to say (our vows), what we wanted our officiants to do (we gave them an outline and their job was to welcome guests, connect all the elements together, and marry us, officially), our readings, and how to engage our guests so that it wasn’t just something they were watching but something in which they participated.

Marriage is hard, and having our friends and family pledge their support and integrating our community into our ceremony was really important. We scoured books and the web, and asked friends, colleagues, and anyone we could find. We found a ring warming tradition that we included: our rings traveled around to all the guests who held them and (hopefully!) infused them with best wishes for our life together as a married couple.