How I Planned Your Wedding (4 page)

I have known the uncertain merits of measuring the backseat of
the car to see if it’s actually conceivable that a family could live there after eviction. I’ve eschewed entering my books in prestigious award contests because I needed the entry fee to buy groceries. Oh, and those phony-looking blank checks that come in the mail with your credit card statement? Guess what? You really
can
write them to the IRS.

As you can see, budget and finance are hardly my thing. Passion, not practicality, is the fiction writer’s strong suit.

Long-term survival in this business does, however, train even the most passionate among us to be cautious when it comes to spending money. So when your adored and newly engaged daughter comes to you and says she wants to spend six figures on her wedding day, feel free to take a moment.

Take two moments. Knock yourself out.

Dealing with the wedding budget is a crucible for family values. How much is enough? How much is too much, and how—outside of a small brown plastic pill bottle—do you find the balance?

I don’t recall exactly what my own wedding cost. I do remember that my dad wrote a single check to the Always and Forever Wedding Chapel, and he didn’t even break into a sweat. Our “reception” was a gathering of friends and family at my parents’ home and we had a sheet cake from the grocery store around the corner. However, I do concede that I was not the girl who fantasized all her life about being a bride. I fantasized about writing that bride’s story, again and again. If someone had threatened to take that dream away, she would have had a fight on her hands.

Here’s where I want to remind you—your daughter’s wedding is about
her
dreams, not yours. And who are you to deny this person her dreams? So what if you want her to spend her wedding budget on a 401(k) plan or a down payment on a home? Take a deep breath, step back, give her a lump sum you’re comfortable with…and let go.

My husband likes to say water finds its own level. You hope that level is not so deep that everyone ends up like the people in steerage on the
Titanic.
Chances are, you’ll come up with a plan that makes the
bride happy. How you get to that point is a mysterious process involving, to borrow an apt phrase, a searching and fearless moral inventory of your finances, your marriage, your emotions and your conscience.

I know what you’re thinking:
I’d rather have a root canal.

But I also know you’ll do the right thing. Take a deep breath, take a step back and set priorities.

Warning: the wedding industry is a Vast Dove-Wing Conspiracy that exists in order to shake you down like a two-bit pickpocket. It’s easy to get swept into a vortex of wanton spending in which you—a hitherto reasonable individual—are brainwashed into thinking you cannot possibly pull off a wedding without horses dyed to match the bridal party colors, saffron-infused Kobe beef wrapped in Maine lobster tails and sprinkled with gold leaf and Beluga caviar, matching Louboutin pumps for the bridesmaids, a flyover by the Blue Angels and letterpressed toilet paper.

Do me a favor and stay in touch with your Common Sense Fairy. You know her. She’s that smart Inner Girl who has reeled you back from the precipice all your life. She’ll remind you to take a step back, do your breathing and embrace your right to the line-item veto. Heed her well.

Ultimately, the goal is to celebrate this incredibly happy couple and to launch them into a beautiful new life. Trust me: you’re not doing them any favors by simply agreeing to their every whim. You want to have a meaningful ceremony followed by a memorable party. It’s very liberating when you think of things in those terms.

Chances are, you can just say no to the letterpressed toilet paper.

HOMETOWN WEDDING RUMBLE

M
ommy really wanted the wedding at home, and even lobbied like a teamster-with-lipstick about it. It didn’t bother her in the least that traveling to the tiny, wet, green island where I grew up was going to be problematic for out-of-town guests unfamiliar with the watery hell that is the Seattle ferry commute. She thought nothing of cramming up to two hundred guests onto the groaning deck in her backyard for canapés of salmon spread and Dixie cups of Cold Duck. She was quite certain that, even though the town rolls up its sidewalks at sundown, we would not hear a peep of complaint about the loud partying until midnight. I might have mentioned this before—my mother spends her days with fictional characters who iron out all of life’s problems by page 386.

Here’s the thing: Dave and I decided early on that we wanted to make our wedding as easy as possible on our guests. Yes, the day was all about us, but our guests were the ones making the hike out to Seattle and buying us extravagant gifts. (Well, MOST of them were buying extravagant gifts. Those who didn’t were permanently put on the “cheap postcard during the holidays” list. Not that I’m bitter or anything.) Essentially, my hometown was difficult to get to and had no easy, affordable and roomy venues. Sound simple? Try telling that to your mother who has just offered to shell out the equivalent of the average person’s annual salary on your wedding.

All I can say is, stick to your guns. If you’re adamant, be adamant with a smile on your face, and make sure it’s not a rictus of ridicule. Get married in a place that you and your partner love. Period. Trust me: your mom will learn to love it, too—even if she refuses to admit how awesome it was until the whole thing is over.

Dave and I were devoted to Seattle and had found a venue that we thought was beautiful and fit our budget. Court in the Square was located in a quaint historic neighborhood just south of downtown. It was an entryway between two old brick buildings during the day, but on the weekends the six-story glass atrium served as an event space. Its retractable roof let the sun in, catching an infinity-style fountain at the far end of the room. The two buildings that formed the north and south walls of the venue maintained their exposed brick and lush, green window boxes. Fifteen-foot-tall live potted trees were interspersed around the room, each of them on wheels so they could be relocated to make space for different event layouts.

Oh, and did I mention that it cost only seven hundred bucks to rent?

It was perfect.

More perfect than my hometown.

That was a hard conversation to have with my folks, and in the end we never really did reach an agreement—a few weeks before the wedding, my mom was still saying things like, “Well, if you’d had the wedding at our house, this wouldn’t be an issue…”

But that’s one of the things you learn as you plan your wedding: you can’t please everyone, not even the most important people involved. You have to learn to disagree without having the whole process come to a standstill. The Native American Hopi tribe requires a bride to grind cornmeal for three days in her mother-in-law’s kitchen while the groom’s aunts attack her with mud. I knew my refusal to have the wedding in my hometown was a bit of a slap in the face to my mom (at least, that’s what she thought), so I worked to make sure she had a chance to feel at home during the wedding weekend. The cool thing about a
wedding is that it gives rise to ancillary celebrations, like brunches, barbecues and happy hours. They’re entirely optional but a good way to extend the joy beyond the Hi-Bye crush of the wedding reception—and you can use them to throw your mom a hometown bone.

Her main point throughout the hometown wedding battle was that her house was a beautiful, free venue that would be incredibly easy on my whole family. When I asked how she felt about having Porta Potties for two hundred people in her backyard, she blithely shrugged and said, “They can come inside and use our guest bathroom!”

Thinking back to other weddings I’d been to and the state of the bathrooms after the bridesmaids had guzzled one too many lemon drops and unleashed a stream of citrusy vomit on the tiled floor, I gulped. I tried explaining to her how difficult it was going to be to find parking, to calm the neighbors when things got noisy, to keep her crystal stemware from being shattered on the concrete patio, but she wouldn’t be swayed. I tried trumpeting the benefits of our chosen venue, Court in the Square: close to home, accessible for all our guests, ample parking, beautiful atmosphere, airy space…but to no avail.

Then she sent this email to Dave and me:

She’s good, huh? This is what happens when your mother writes for a living. She takes up her pen against you—and it cuts straight into the most tender, vulnerable spot in your heart. She had some valid points, as well as some that were not so valid. For instance, Court in the Square is gorgeous and in the end we spent very little on décor. And did she actually suggest that our guests consider camping? But she ended up being correct about my grandfather needing to leave early—and on the wedding night, I was sad to have to say goodbye to my dad well before the reception ended. I’m glad that she made me think about those things ahead of time, because in the end I would have been dramatically more upset if I hadn’t been expecting it.

But you can tell how she felt. I didn’t know how to respond, so I
ignored the manifesto and hoped someone else would deal with it.

And—what do you know?—I had a fiancé who was already on top of it. With no prompting from me, he sent a measured, perfect response that left my mom feeling respected, listened to and accepting of our plans.

Wow. He’s good, too. Any guy who can say
awesomest
with a straight face is a keeper, for sure.

My mom and Dave both had great points, and ultimately we decided not to completely rethink our wedding. Dave and I were both happy with the venue we’d already chosen. Still, I understood how important it was to my parents to host our family and friends on their home turf, so I asked Mommy to have a welcome barbecue for our immediate families and wedding party the Thursday before our wedding.

The barbecue went off without a hitch and was the perfect way to reunite with relatives I hadn’t seen in years. My mom got the hosting bug out of her system, and we eased into the wedding weekend, content with the way things played out.