Thursday, October 19, 2006

How to Pull Off a $200 Wedding

[I sure don't know what happened to yesterday! It was our 31st wedding anniversary. Charming had to work, so I did school and laundry and errands and watched Blueberry so his Mommy could take his Daddy out to dinner for his birthday. I did everything "normally," except to blog!]

How To Have A $200 Wedding

1. make a muslin wedding dress. After all, it *is* 1975 and you *are* "long-haired hippie types." Wear baby's breath in your hair.
2. make your groom a muslin shirt and a suit made of muslin-colored twill a la James Taylor on the front of hisGorilla album.
3. don't forget to stay up until 1am the night before the wedding to finish the bow tie. This will assure your falling asleep at 8:15 on your wedding night.
4. carry a single red rose. Have your groom wear a single red rosebud in his lapel.
5. make your maid of honor's gown out of flowered muslin.
6. have the best man wear the blue velvet blazer that he already owns, and the black velvet bowtie that everybody already owned.
7. repeat #4 with pink roses for the attendants.
8. have a friend take photos for free, buying the film for you for a gift.
9. have your hippie friend play guitar and sing for the wedding--barefoot.

Now to the reception:
1. use a banquet room donated by a family friend who manages a hotel.
2. let the groom's mother buy the cake.
3. let the bride's mother get the napkins and nuts and mints and punch.
4. be sure to use your mother's silver candlesticks she received as a gift for her 25th wedding anniversary. Save them to use at your daughter's wedding.
5. cover the pool table in the banquet room with a paper tablecloth, and use it for the gift table.
6. get the bluegrass band the groom plays with to play at the reception. Be sure to trip over your dress and fall down during the "first dance." It makes a real impression on the guests.

Taking these steps will assure comments about "the most unusual wedding we've ever been to!" by your aunts and great-aunts. Tho' I'm still not sure if they meant that they liked it...

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Now, I'm not implying that you could pull off a $200 wedding in this day and age. When our daughter got married two years ago, she had a "princess" theme. And the cost was way, way closer to $10,000. But at least I didn't have to buy silver candlesticks!

2 comments :

Mary Ann said...

We had a $1500 wedding for about 200 people and thought we did really good! We were tired though, cause we did almost everything ourselves and our friends volunteeered their services as well. I made my own dress, made our invitations, used ficus trees and greenery from our church for decorations, and used the variety of yard sale white candles that my sister used for her wedding 2 months before. We also did our own dessert reception. But it was worth it- no debt from the wedding or honeymoon!!! I love hearing about other people's inexpensive weddings!

Patty said...

we had one daughter that married 22 months ago for $2,000 for everything, including her dress. Another married 2 months ago with twice as many guests as her sister, 225 people for $3,000. Next week our son marries and that one costs us nothing : )