I have spent the past few weeks helping a friend plan her wedding. It’s a lucky thing I did, because I’m not sure she could have gone ahead without me. Because over the years, I’ve been to a lot of weddings and picked up a lot of useful ideas about how to organize them and I was able to pass many of these hints on to her.
If you’re planning on marrying, some of my wedding tips might also be of help to you. Here they are. No charge.
Cost
Most weddings can be carried off quite nicely for around $100,000. A simple, but effective approach to paying for a wedding is to go to the bank once a day, fill up a suitcase with cash, and then start handing it out to everyone you see. Just stop people on the street, say, “Hi there. I’m getting married. Here’s $100.” Eventually, all your money will be gone and you’ll be broke. And you will be able to tell your grandchildren, “When Beulah Mae and I got married, we didn’t have a cent.” Because you won’t. The extent of your poverty will become a fond memory, some day.
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Keeping it Simple
Trying to keep weddings simple is like trying to keep kids quiet in church. Sooner or later, they bust loose. In fact, you’re likely to be about the only simple thing about your wedding. Arranging security for U.S. presidents takes less planning than the average wedding which is purposely complicated so the bride- and groom-to-be can suffer at least three partial nervous breakdowns before the special day. These are necessary so the happy couple can fully appreciate their honeymoon and the rest of their marriage. Because nothing they ever face again is likely to be that traumatic.
Your best bet is to forget keeping it simple and try to get everything as convoluted as it can possibly be. Then, simply imagine a wedding twice as mixed up as your most mixed-up plans and voila, there’s your wedding day!
Whom to Invite
This is a simple matter, but a step over which many couples trip, nevertheless. People try to make choices. This is wrong. Simply invite everyone you’ve ever met and everyone you’ve never met and you should pretty well have it covered. If you pick your wedding date carefully, you might be able to book a sports stadium in off-season for the event.
Photographs
The Voyageur II spacecraft managed to take only about 8,000 pictures on its recent flypast of the planet Neptune, so even if it was somehow able to shoot a modern wedding, it would obviously not be able to handle the assignment. The bride alone should have had at least that many pictures of her before she enters the church for her walk down the aisle. Of the wedding pictures, one should be selected, blown up and hung on a wall. The rest should be hidden in books and boxes at the bottom of trunks so they can baffle a stranger years down the road who won’t have any idea who is shown in them.
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Speeches
Who knows how long it might be before your star will shine this brightly again and so a lengthy, rambling speech at your wedding meal is a necessity. The speech has two purposes – to provide you with a lifetime of embarrassing comments to try to forget and to thank everyone who ever helped you. The thanking is the most important aspect of your speech and it is a serious offence to leave out anyone. Therefore, it is wise to begin your thanks with Queen Elizabeth II and end with Kermit the Frog. Try to touch everyone in between.
Alternatives
There aren’t any. So far, humans have not devised a way of being married without getting married. Until we do, we’re just going to have to go along with it.
But, there are worse fates.
(Update: The day after this newspaper column was published, I married the friend I referred to above. Thirty-one years later, we’re still together. I am glad she carefully took the advice I so benevolently offered.)
©1989 Jim Hagarty
