The Wedding is Off.

Okay, okay, so maybe that was a dramatic post title...

To clarify, the wedding is not off in its entirety. We're still getting married. We've just opted - likely to the chagrin of our family and friends - to forgo an enormous, money-hounding ceremony and reception for an intimate affair just the three of us.

I'd thought about this before. Long before we got engaged, I seriously kicked around the idea of running off the three of us to the islands or some similarly beautiful locale to tie the knot in peace. Lord knows weddings are expensive. Just HOW expensive, however, I had no clue about! I mean, several grand? Sure. Twenty to thirty grand? You crazy!

Another friend of ours is getting married. Actually, several, but one in particular got engaged around the same time and is planning a wedding around the same time. She's referred to her "budget" and stress in the same sentence a lot, which is understandable, except her parents gave her a LARGE chunk of money to spend on the wedding. While I don't begrudge her that, it's hard to hear considering that the total contribution both of our sets of parents have made is the astronomical sum of...$0.

Ouch.

Whomp whomp.

I always knew this would be the case, but it still super sucks. And while we've managed to put money into savings, I cannot justify depleting it for the sole purpose of one days worth of memories. Sure, a fancy wedding would be lovely, but I'm not that type of girl who is going to care that much when all is said and done. If someone else was paying, I'd love it. The reality, however, is that they're not, and I cannot justify taking out a chunk of our savings that should be put towards Ava's college fund, her own wedding so she isn't screwed over by our poor choices in the future, or towards the terrifying possibility that one of us could lose our income. It's just not worth it to me.

So, we'll be forgoing a wedding. I know it's disappointing, but know this. There will still be a ceremony. I'll still wear a beautiful and fancy white dress - and it will not be dumbed down per our intimate and likely informal ceremony. It's magnificent, let me tell you. We'll likely skip town for either the islands or some tropical beach, and after saying our vows, we'll sit on the beach as an official family of three, two of us sipping champagne and all of us nomming on delicious (vegan for A) cake and basking in the glow of post-wedding bliss.

And, to me, that sounds perfect.