1 post tagged “jnicoloff”

so, this is completely ridiculous.  i'm now engaged to the greatest, sweetest, most fantastic guy on earth, and within minutes after he asks me how do i feel???  COMPLETELY ANXIETY RIDDEN!!  why, you ask?  good question.  it actually has nothing to do with him, nor our relationship.  it's purely stress about planning and paying for a wedding.  and it's overwhelming.

ah the modern world!  these days, especially in san francisco, people get married later in life.  so, frankly, that also often means that the couple getting married may very well have a larger income than their parents.  which really cancels out the entire reason for the tradition of parents of the bride paying for the wedding.  long ago, when crazy kids got married at 18 to 24 years of age, it made sense.  young couples had little to nothing and it made sense for parents and family to help get them off on the right foot.  there are myriad other reasons for the tradition of big ol' parents-of-the-bride-paid-for weddings, the persistence of which is purely due to commercialism and the bridal industry.  so, bottom line, its to be expected that a 32 year old woman and her 36 year old fiance pay for their own wedding.

and yet i fret.  why?  well, no matter how i look at it, we're going to be shelling out a fair chunk of money to throw a wedding that we are excited about for all of our family members and our good friends.  there are a thousand possibilities for weddings--no doubt.  but there are a few basic requirements that must be met:

1. we must have a wedding that 50+ members of our families can come to and enjoy
2. even if we cut our friends list way down, we'd still have to have at least 20 or so folks from that crowd.
3. we have to provide some sort of food or refreshments for those folks.  do the math in your head.
4. location has to be something that doesn't suck, and that we're at least excited about.

now i have no doubts that if i didn't have a job i could cleverly craft the shit out of this event for a very low price.  but even a low price won't be so low that i wouldn't have to save up something.  which me brings me to the greatest irony of this whole event.  jay and i would really like to buy a condo/house/apt.  naturally, that requires saving up too.  so now, our need to have a wedding that satisfies a certain set of requirements and our desire to establish ourselves and buy real estate, are in direct competition.  that's ridiculous, but it's reality.

2 years from now i won't really care about any of this because i know we'll work the whole thing out.  but seriously folks, am i the only one that finds the whole situation annoyingly and irritatingly ironic?

your feedback and ideas are welcome and appreciated.