When Jason and I got engaged, it was one of the happiest moments of my life! I couldn’t wait to build a meaningful future with him. But when it came to a wedding, I wasn’t looking for any fanfare. I just wanted to inconvenience and annoy a small group of friends and family. That’s why I decided to have a small wedding that would still punish all those people who are close to me.
Weddings are so expensive! You’re spending hundreds of dollars on a cake you’re too busy to enjoy, thousands on flowers that will wilt, plus you’re paying enough money for a venue and catering to put a down payment on a house! Memories, on the other hand, are priceless, and it doesn’t cost anything to call your mom in the middle of the night and screech, “YOU’RE RUINING MY SPECIAL DAY, YOU BITCH!”
When you have hundreds of guests, you end up spending more time being a host than being with the people that you want to punish the most. I didn’t want to have a wedding I was rushing around to get a tiny bit of face time with everyone. I much preferred to spend my wedding with the people who mean the most to us, including my four bridesmaids for whom it was still unspeakably expensive to participate in my blessed day. If anyone complained about the $140 jeweled headband I required, I just froze her out. Just because the wedding is small doesn’t mean you don’t have to make sacrifices!
The best part about having a small wedding is that it got to be about me and Jason, and making everyone around us miserable and exhausted in an intimate setting. With a smaller guest list, we were able to do more things that we wanted, like serve ox tongue and not have a dance floor or music to fill a near-silent room. It was so nice to have a wedding that felt like our night without having to worry about pleasing all our guests, or even any of them.
Remember—a smaller wedding doesn’t have to mean “worse”! With a small wedding you can still pull your maid-of-honor aside before the photos and say, “I want cellulite-free pictures, so sit this one out.”
For me, a small wedding is all about quality over quantity—and the quality is good for you, and an outright punishment for anyone else.
