I am going to print the pdf, then burn it in effigy. Also, those vows instructions are a good way to write cheesy crap that only you and your beloved will understand.

Also, I hate weddings.

I'm glad this spoke to you, Cala; I was thinking of you when I posted it.

Weddings are silly. Why don't they ever have a scene in a movie where people are leaving a long, boring wedding, and one turns to the other and says "Now, just how long do we really have to stay at the reception?" Because that's been my experience at virtually every wedding I've ever been to.

Receptions are fun. You drink, and then dance off the alcohol, then drink some more. And going shopping with giggly sisters is fun.

The wedding-industrial complex, however? Can bite me.

Question about 1: how can you burn the printed PDF in effigy? Do you photocopy the printout, and then burn that? I mean, isn't burning the printout actually burning the (printed) effigy of the PDF? Why the extra "in effigy?"

It's the penultimate burning in effigy!

Or, I'm just mistaking what the "it" in "burn it in effigy" refers to. Never mind!

I'd say something smart about not really burning the electronic form of the file or something, but really, I just goofed.

Oh, that's no fun.

we were scared out of writing vows by the samples that our rabbi (actually a cantor) gave us--promises to be to each other the shining sea, the bountiful earth, etc. etc. Instead we promised to "love, cherish and protect" each other & I then wowed everyone with my terrible Hebrew. Since then I've been to several friends' weddings where they wrote their vows--have really liked it in every case. So it is possible.

I was supposed to buy a wedding magazine for my own wedding to show potential cake designs. I ended up not being able to pay $8 towards the Bridal Industrial Complex, and just telling them "look, just put some of the flowers on it, okay?"

I do like receptions though.

Ooh, page 104. Getting married? Not without losing weight, you're not, missy. What the hell.

we wrote our own vows--not sure we still have a copy. i'm pretty sure it would strike me now as adolescent nonsense, since we were pretty much adolescents at the time. i remember we included a good chunk of adrian rich (not to say that's adolescent nonsense).

the wedding industrial complex can definitely be beaten. we spent no more than $100 on ours. it was a nice time, and several decades later we are happy with the results.

i hear about people spending more on weddings than we paid as a down-payment on our first house. it strikes me as utterly insane, and a huge disservice to the couple.

page 104

I see ads for Vera Wang and Holiday Inn.

Or thereabouts. I may have miscounted with the gazillions of ads. 101-103.

Ah, 102.

It's time to take a look in the mirror, naked.

Wasn't this in the NY Times recently, in Q & A format?

I wonder why the Idealist hasn't commented here yet. If he gets in a flame war with Apostropher that will make for an engaging recent-comments sidebar.

15: Is there ever a time when looking in the mirror naked is not an appropriate activity?

14 & 15 - Even better is the list of all of the surgical/cosmetic procedures you can have done on page 98.

The one good thing I can say about the Marriage Industrial Complex is that it redistributes a lot of money from people with way too much of it into the hands of hardworking florists, bakers, waiters, cooks, etc.

But for people without way too much money, it does create some sucky sucky expectations and pressures.

I modified the conventional vows so they didn't sound so stilted and Hallmark card-y. And of course I didn't practice, so I found myself trying to memorize the vows just before the ceremony, drew a blank for a minute while reciting them (giggles from my assembled friends, the assholes), but managed to recover. Coulda ended up making 'em up on the spot, though, if I weren't so cool in a crisis.

Oh, and Ogged? Are we allowed to think less of you for having friends who get written up in society magazines?

17: I'm looking in the mirror naked *right now*.

Damn, I look good.

21 -- this is where you're supposed to have your webcam turned on, dammit!

Or you can just message the pictures to my cell phone.

No webcam. You'll just have to use your imagination.

13: Which don't go together at all; Holiday Inn is too down-market for Vera Wang.

Best wedding ever: A young friend wanted a Disney movie theme wedding. The movie? Nightmare Before Christmas. Greatest cake ever, in full colour, with the main characters on it.

Second best wedding: At the end, the wedding party whipped out sunglasses and danced out to Kodachrome. The bride had come down the aisle to the Moody Blues Your Wildest Dreams

Worst wedding I didn't attend: My brother's first; the marriage lasted 8 weeks. The bride evidently was very rude to the servers, always a bad sign.

Me, I eloped. Twice. First wedding was done by an 80-year old Chinese justice of the peace, who gave me a Chinese cookbook. [He started out a little confused and tried to marry my friend Diane to my then-boyfriend's friend Eric.] Second was done by a justice of the peace in New Haven, and was followed by pizza and cheesecake [green, with lunar craters and little spacemen, courtesy of my friend Bridget] in my brother's Yale dorm room.

Should the Biophysicist and I marry, I want a black leather wedding gown. It's more practical for riding off on the motorcycle.

24 -- but without a webcam, who shall say you are not the happy genius of your household?

17: "15: Is there ever a time when looking in the mirror naked is not an appropriate activity?"

It should always be part of the ceremony.

"First wedding was done by an 80-year old Chinese justice of the peace, who gave me a Chinese cookbook."

That was the Artist with whom you hyphenated, right? Or was he the second? (Just checking.)

"courtesy of my friend Bridget"

Who went to Wesleyan, and whose last name started with "D" and was an interesting pronunciation test? Or another one?

Answers not mandatory.

I also Just Want To Note that the weather report here calls for -- oh, joy -- a major snowstorm (last week's still hasn't melted).

Is there ever a time when looking in the mirror naked is not an appropriate activity?

When it's a one-way mirror. . .

. . . in a police station interrogation room.

It should always be part of the ceremony.

I have some vague memory of watching Star Trek, Next Generation when I was a kid.Ah, yes, thanks Wikipedia, here it is:

Data inquires more about the Betazoid joining ceremony. Lwaxana is delighted to explain it, saying it's one of the most beautiful ceremonies. The bride and groom remove their clothing. Tasha is stunned; "they go naked?" Lwaxana indicates all marriage guests undress. It honors the act of love being celebrated. Victoria nearly chokes on her food, but Lwaxana tells her she not to worry, her body doesn't look "that" bad. Lwaxana adds; "Besides, your husband quite likes the idea of seeing me unclothed." Steven's eyes widen as Victoria gasps in horror. Lwaxana acts just as startled when she realizes Victoria didn't know her husband was attracted to her.

that would make for a great bridal magazine, no?

I've enjoyed most of the weddings I've gone too, and they've almost all been poor-as-churchmice type affairs, but still quite delightful. The two weddings with real money benefitted mostly in the department of more alcohol and nice food.

Yeah, the weddings I've attended have generally been quite enjoyable, with enthusiastic guests.

My mom is a minor part of the wedding-industrial complex (she bakes and decorates cakes, but doesn't really charge enough for them), so I agree with #19. The more money that redistributes in her direction, the better. The *rest* of the WIC creeps her out pretty thoroughly, though.

We woulda kept our wedding under 5 grand (not bad for 100 guests with a 30-guest rehearsal dinner) except for the 3 grand bar tab.

What really happens at a rehearsal dinner? If I ever get married, there's just no way I'm going to bother with a rehearsal.

And isn't it in part the minor little fuckups that make a wedding memorable--or at least interesting--for the guests?

See, there's a problem. I am of a stupid personality that either wants a reasonably large wedding or none at all because I don't want to have a wedding where no one comes because it's lame. (part of the problem is that my friends have all to the last kowtowed to the W-IC, so I have no idea how to do a wedding that doesn't cost $20K, and I have about $7.13.)

If you want to have a non-lame wedding, then have one that isn't large, Cala. It's the large ones that are lame.

Two suggestions, then, Cala: just throw a great party somewhere, doing the ceremony when convenient and cheap, or (and this one is popular) convert to LDS and do it practically for free!

"practically for free" if you discount the loss of your sanity.

Our wedding cost in the neighborhood of $3000, which seemed like a lot to me at the time and I guess still does, and it was a very nice wedding. Did rely a fair bit on favors called in from friends I guess. Not huge; I forget but I think there were in the neighborhood of 30 or 40 guests. Does "rehearsal dinner" mean a dinner the night before the wedding attended by both sets of in-laws? We had that, I think we could have skipped it without any negative affect on the overall wedding experience.

Here's the other idea: a lot of the wedding-y locations really aren't necessary. You've mocked the church-with-basketball-hoop aesthetic, but if there were alcohol, people dressed up, and a dj, people could have a good time in a church with a basketball hoop. It wouldn't be a Mormon wedding anymore, but I'll provisionally admit that that's a good thing.

I went to a wedding recently at the W Hotel in Manhattan. I came away thinking that I would have willing traded two luxury levels for another couple of hours of salsa dancing.

For receptions, wine is way cheaper than an open bar and will intoxicate people just as efficiently.

We held our rehearsal dinner in the best man's backyard, and served hamburgers and sausages with beer and potato salad. Total cost of about $200, icnluding the table and chair rental. Oh, plus the emergency plumbing visit because my mother-in-law continues to be under the misimpresson that garbage disposals are magic and can eat anything.

Jane got a relatively inexpensive dress, we hired a semi-pro photographer and a college-radio DJ, the wedding itself was at the restaurant where we held the reception (lovely flower gardens out back), my sister made the wedding favor chocolates... We splurged on dinner itself (filet in bearnaise sauce, roast chicken, or salmon), the cake (Jane loves cake!), and the bar tab, but everything else was on the relative cheap. I don't think anybody noticed the cut corners.

wedding favor chocolates

You mean like a party favor? Is this something you invented, or something we just forgot about?

Yeah, a number of weddings give out party favors--little chocolates, monogrammed wine glasses, special beribboned baskets. That might be a corner well worth cutting.

Why do Chicago brides get their own magazine?

All the better for the local business to advertise to them, I'd guess.

My cousin had her reception in an art museum, which was relatively cheap and a really cool experience. Being able to wander around the galleries kept things interesting.

45: You can drop the gifts-for-guests tradition, but it doesn't have to cost much. We printed out a favorite poem on nice paper, rolled up each copy and tied it with a ribbon -- couple hundred copies for a few bucks. BTW, Cala, we had a big fat Catholic wedding -- sung Latin Mass, the whole nine yards -- and managed to avoid the clutches of the W-I complex; we saved a ton of money, but for several months it did feel as though I'd picked up another full-time job. Good luck.

Also, I recommend recycling old vows, partly because writing your own is yet another hugely time-consuming thing to do, and partly because it's fun to say "thereto I plight thee my troth."

Have your husband end his vows with "pending clearance of the check your father gave me as dowry".

I have no advice to give on weddings, since we just went to Brooklyn Borough Hall, one witness. A couple of weeks later we had a party at our apartment; we told everyone "no gifts" but one friend gave us a box of Hamburger Helper and a box of Tuna Helper. "Surf & Turf!"

Instead of paying for the reception, my in-laws paid for our honeymoon, which was spent here.

50 -- Only the man says "plight." The woman "gives" her troth.

The 1928 BCP = God's Own English.

Also this: "With this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee worship; and with all my worldly goods I thee endow." If you can do better, have at it, but that's pretty sweet. You probably don't want guests knowing about your pre-nup if you include that last bit, though.

which was spent here.

Holy cheese, da. Did you actually get into the champagne glass?

Also from the "no fat chicks" page, a limo company ad:

Doesn't Your Wedding Deserve a Rolls Royce Limo?

Plan on singing something deep and heart-felt, and get a dog to howl along with your singing. Add the corniest words from Gibran's "The Prophet" and much strong drink. 'Twas about forty years ago and many of the people there are dead now but I still grin whenever I think of that particular wedding. All the rest I've gong to, including my own, have faded to nothing.

I hadn't seen this in the BCP.

The Minister, if he shall have reason to doubt of the lawfulness of the proposed Marriage, may demand sufficient surety for his indemnification

One should probably include some form of hold-harmless language in the vows, to obviate the need for a bond. Consult your local lawyer . . .

52: That champagne-glass bathtub is hott. But if one's partner is beneath the tub, isn't it awkward in a sort of dangly-bits-smushed-against-the-see-through-glass kind of way?

53: Perhaps that's the practice among infidels, but in the Sarum Rite, both say 'plight.'

Funny you should ask that, Stanley, because we had a big laugh taking pictures of our asses pushed up against the glass. In one picture, my ex's ass was shaped just like a heart, which fit perfectly in a magnetic heart-shaped frame we bought in the gift shop. We had it on our fridge for a while.

taking pictures of our asses pushed up against the glass

God, that's uncouth. And I was wondering if you even got into the thing.

62: Well, that's the whole point of booking a room like that. Jeez.

Gotta ask the right questions, ogged.

I thought your in-laws had booked the room for you, and you had been scandalized, but amused. But no.

No, they just paid for it. We were the ones who picked it. It was serious cheese: mirrored ceilings, massage room, heart-shaped pool, dura-log fireplace, Egypt-themed wallpaper throughout. They give you a big honking container of bubble bath when you check in.

Man, I'm no fun. I wonder if they would have given you a discount if you had agreed to appear in their promotional materials.

You've mocked the church-with-basketball-hoop aesthetic, but if there were alcohol, people dressed up, and a dj, people could have a good time in a church with a basketball hoop.

No, no. It's only when the basketball hoop is the crucifix that I have a problem. One friend had a great wedding reception in the basketball court adjoining the church, except that the wedding reception was dry, which is anathema.

54 is awesome, and 56 is cracking me up. Skimping on favors and frou-frou extras is fine (death to chocolate fountains), but I get the sense that the only thing that makes a serious dent in the budget is cutting the guest list.

You're even less fun than me. A dubious distinction.

I wonder if they would have given you a discount if you had agreed to appear in their promotional materials.

A horrifying thought. Looking at their website makes me laugh.

69 to 67.

The last wedding I went to was, in fact, the legal wedding, but the "real" wedding (with parents and grandparents only) was going to be in Mexico. We all chipped in (with the bride and groom) to rent a giant cabin in Tahoe, took snowboarding lessons, made a big dinner and two raunchily decked cakes, told bad jokes and old stories about them, and (most of us) drank a lot of wine and mostly talked. In the morning we went to a wedding chapel, and surprised them with our costumes. 1 Elvis, a couple pirates, and a whole lotta ninjas. (Sorry ogged. Some of my crew doesn't even *need* a theme to spontaneously show up in costume. The nice thing about a ninja costume is it's easily transformed back into a little black dress. I felt a little sorry for the one woman who did not know the rest of us and showed u in a ski sweater. The bride and groom were delighted.) The wedding feast was at a diner next door and it was great. It probably cost them $200 each at the most, and us $130 each, including the snowboarding and cabin and food--so, slightly more expensive then a weekend getaway. Instead of presents and a reception they'll be tending bar in a benefit for doctors without borders. All around, pretty awesome.

I don't like thinking to much about my hypothetical future wedding since I have no boyfriend, but I would want a big event sharing it with lots of friends and my family. That doesn't mean expensive. My mother was clucking her head over a letter from India in which someone was describing not being invited to some relation's wedding. This is in contrast to the old days when you threw your house open and invited anybody and everybody for a three-day party. So my mom goes, "I don't care if you have to eat corn on a cob out in a field, I think you should invite absolutely everyone who would really want to be there." And I kinda have to agree--I'd probably just rent a pretty high school and have a potluck barbecue, if it came down to it.

The Lur are famous for being no fun. It's the Iowa of the Middle East.

You all realize, of course, that for me reading this thread is what it would be for a vegan animal rightser to read a thread on the various fun ways of slaughtering animals. But do I complain, or expect the least consideration from my so-called e-friends? Of course not.

I liken myself to the early anti-slavery crusaders, who were centuries ahead of their time. I can only hope that this anti-relationship momentum will gradually build upon its small beginning, until finally this country is torn apart by a bloody civil war in which the pro-relationship faction is decisively defeated. (Hopefully my side will not then make the mistake of prematurely putting an end to the necessary Reconstruction).

You all realize, of course, that for me reading this thread is what it would be for a vegan animal rightser to read a thread on the various fun ways of slaughtering animals.

I think of my contributions as participation in a Relationships Anonymous meeting. "Look at all crazy things I did before I saw the light!"

I love delicious cake and open bars weddings.

I wonder if this comment will make sense in context of the thread. Probably not.

Thesis: wedding vows are for parents. Sometimes, the couple may be saccharine enough that they like the vows, too, but this is incidental.

I can only hope that this anti-relationship momentum will gradually build upon its small beginning

If it makes you feel any better, John, I think your side is winning. It's only a matter of time before the pro-relationship faction is reduced to conducting its regressive rituals in secrecy, like the recusants under Elizabeth I, and if it means the demise of the wedding-industrial complex, it will not have been too high a price to pay.

The Lur are famous for being no fun.

They're plenty of fun, as long as you're talking about cutting off the beards of insolent old men and parading them through the countryside. Bubble baths, no.

Our wedding cost a couple of hundred pounds - done in a (very nice) registry office, then a walk across the park in the sunshine to a pub with a nice restaurant. We sat drinking in the beer garden, went inside for a quick meal, then went back out to the beer garden. The guests -- maybe about 12 close friends an family -- paid for their own meal and drinks while other friends just dropped in and out for a quick drink or two.

Since I was paying for it and I was an impoverished student, the whole wedding-industrial complex could fuck off.

77: Ol' Man Emerson may hate me for saying it, but what the hell: ttaM, you make getting married sound downright enjoyable.

False consciousness makes people think they enjoy things which they actually don't. Reeducation and reconstruction solve that problem.

77: That does sound awfully pleasant. And I like Ilehas' formulation in 71 -- inviting anyone and everyone, all your extended family and your neighbors and friends for miles and miles. There are only very few occasions when everyone -- your family and friends, and their family and friends -- all get together, and weddings are one of those. I like the idea of doing my part to ensure that these conventions take place every now and again. Theoretically, it doesn't even have to be that expensive. All you need is food and booze and places to sit -- it's the designer dresses and party favors and ridiculous decorations that put everything over the top.

Then again, I'm totally drunk right now. When I'm sober, I tend to fall in line with Emerson's line of thinking.

Cala, I had a wedding about the size you're planning for about $2000, I shit you not. Wine and champagne, heavy hors d'oeuvres, rented a (furnished) penthouse in the apartment building we lived in, hired a jazz pianist for a couple hundred bucks and another couple musicians for the ceremony for another couple hundred, told the florist "heavy greens, do something in season, I don't care what," and hired a guy from the base to snap some pictures and hand us the film. I kinda regret that last bit, but anyway, the point is to get out of the WIC and just think, ok, what are the elements to a good party, and then arrange those.

Also I recommend picking the wedding time so as to make it cheaper. We did evening b/c I'm not a morning person, but we did it after the dinner hour; mornings are cheap, and what's wrong with pastries, smoked salmon, and wine instead of a sit-down breakfast?

Here are some refreshingly honest wedding vows.

I'm not a morning person

... posted at 5:03 am.

and what's wrong with pastries, smoked salmon, and wine instead of a sit-down breakfast

Absolutely nothing; indeed option (a) is far superior to (b).

77 comes the closest to our experience--student weddings have to be cheap, but most weddings would be improved by spending less. (sorry about your mum, nathan--i'm pro-cake as a general thing, just anti-wedding expenditure).

that said, my wealthy brother hired a woodwind quintet for his wedding, followed by a proper jazz quartet for the reception, both of them brought down from manhattan, and they were really, really good. the one consolation to having a wealthy brother is that he generally spends it well. live music, well done, is a hell of a lot better than floral arrangements if you ask me.

I've never been to a morning wedding. Do people dance at those? I'm pretty flexible on nearly everything except that I want people to dance, which upon reflection, may also require getting new friends, but in any case, weddings need dancing.

And it needs to be big enough to be worthwhile for people to come, as none of my friends ended up in the same city. I know this is lame, but I'm having the sort of anxiety like I used to have about birthday parties, where you invite the whole class but no one comes because you're not having pony rides, just cake.

cake rides are good. i'd go to a party for a cake ride.

more seriously: i have reacted two ways to wedding invitations in my life:
a) i know one or both of the couple well enough that it's important for me to go, no matter what the festivities
b) i don't know either of the couple well enough that it feels right for me to go.

the decision has never had anything to do with the goody-bags, or even the dancing. people who care about you will come, hell or high water. people who are just there for the drinks are sucking your money and preventing you from putting a down-payment on a house. you don't want them there.

All my favorite weddings have been informal and had an element of the silly to take the edge off the whole for the rest of your lives side of things. The last wedding I was in, I was a bridesman. The groom marched in to the Imperial March, not because he's particularly a fan of Star Wars but because, you know, that was the first thing that came to mind and seeing him in a tux was so alien and imposing that he might as well make fun of it and himself and the whole process; it was a huge hit and it let everyone out of the "oh heavens, what will Grandmother think of the wine?" bullshit. The couple in question spent their honeymoon in Vegas and invited everyone else from the wedding party to show up halfway through, stay elsewhere and spend the end of the trip just partying with them. We had a blast and we're still talking about it to this day.

IMO, weddings should be fun and relaxed and somewhat low-key because (a) it lets everyone genuinely celebrate and (b) what kind of a marriage are they going to have if they can't relax and appreciate a good laugh when something inevitably goes wrong? The WIC encourages ridiculously artificial behavior that I can't help but think starts some significant percentage of marriages off on the wrong foot from day one.

I have a friend who didn't have a flower girl because she didn't want anyone's attention to be on anyone but her, the bride. This made me question her sanity.

86 gets it exactly right. At least on the "who goes and why" thing; I, unlike Ray Smuckles, am neutral on cake rides.

Yeah, I get 86. I just know that a lot of my friends will be spending money to come visit no matter what, and I don't want to serve them Twinkies and popcorn twists after they've had to fly in a plane.

(Fiancé's response: "We can have Twinkies? Score!!")

didn't have a flower girl

I feel like I must be getting mixed up between the roles "flower girl" and "bridesmaid". I thought flower girls were little young things who skipped down the aisle at the very head of the procession scattering petals for everybody else to tread upon. Can't see how they would detract attention from the lush flower of womanhood in the gown.

What is a cake ride?

Wait, did I just ask a dumb question?

91: More toddle down nervously than skip, but no, I meant flower girl, and no, I have no idea how that would detract from the bride, but like I said, insane.

A question that suddenly occurs to me WRT the Calamarriage: what role in the festivities will be played by the Bat? Surely it must put in an appearance at least in some subdued way. Perhaps it could be the ring bearer? (My bride's 5-year-old nephew second cousin, in tears on our wedding day: "I don't wanna be the wing boy!")

Does anyone have an opinion on my use of "detract" in 91? I am thinking I don't actually know what that word means, and that the proper word to use in that context would have been "distract". But am not sure.

Hm. OED thinks I am within the bounds of proper usage. I still think "distract" would have sounded better. Although in Cala's 94, "detract" is better.

Sally's booked for flower-girldom for Buck's niece in three weeks (and Newt as ring bearer). The only thing I can think of stealing-the-bride's-thunder-wise about it is that flower girls seem to generally be in white, rather than matching the bridesmaids. Still, she's seven, which is about par for the role -- anyone worried about being outshined by a seven-year-old is scary.

Emerson, you fortuitously-named matrimonial emancipator, I'll be your William Lloyd Garrison, if you'll have me.

but I get the sense that the only thing that makes a serious dent in the budget is cutting the guest list.

This depends. Bphd's suggestion of treating a reception like a party seems to me exactly correct. You can certainly get a dinner party catered (buffet!) for less than you can get a wedding reception catered. In fact, don't tell any vendors it is a wedding, and that will likely take 20% off the top right there.

How cute, Clownæ! At a wedding I attended recently, the ring bearer and the flower girl must have been told not to walk too quickly, as I have seen faster advances from glaciers. I think they probably observed the adults doing the slow step-together walk, but when you're four, and your feet are only four inches long, it takes about five minutes to get down the aisle.

Then there was the wedding where the ring bearer decided to bounce the pillow by its tassel along behind him like Winnie-the-Pooh, tumpatumpatump.

Hey John Edwards is on TV in New Orleans, I think he is announcing he will run for President.

He is; he emailed me about it this morning.

In fact, don't tell any vendors it is a wedding, and that will likely take 20% off the top right there.

baa is a wise man. This won't work on the cake, obviously, but if you can get a quote for a catered party before anyone knows it's a wedding, you're in a much better haggling position.

Then there was the wedding where the ring bearer decided to bounce the pillow by its tassel along behind him like Winnie-the-Pooh, tumpatumpatump.

Now I'm afraid.

Not that Joe-dry is bragging.

Excellent.

I don't think I was the only recipient.

(And Joe-dry's got nothing on me; I get e-mail from John Edwards all the time. Sometimes from former President Clinton, too!)

I got a Christmas card from Ned Lamont. Confused the heck out of me for a couple of minutes, because it was just a Christmas card, no reference to the campaign, and it wasn't conspicuously a mass mailing, so I was standing there wondering who the vaguely familiar looking family in the picture was.

There is NO inherent reason for a wedding cake to have to be a Wedding Cake, dry, crumbly, and too damned sweet. Just order a big spice cake or something; you can put the little statuettes on the frosting yourself.

But what about the tiers? We must have tiers!

I liked our wedding. It was small (45 guests or thereabouts) and in the Andy Warhol museum, and featured excellent food and no assigned seats. We didn't hire a photographer, and provided our own music, and my dress was just a pretty white dress rather than an expensive wedding gown, and even so the whole thing was hardly free. But spending what money we did spend on good food and a neat location was okay with us.

Our wedding program was approximately the nerdiest document of all time (pretty much all my doing, rather than Snarkout's), something I simultaneously cringe over and am extremely proud of, to this day. It was in the form of a conference-paper handout.

My wedding cake was a Prantl's burnt almond torte, f'rinstance.

My sister got a Christmas card from the President a couple years ago. White House Christmas cards are pretty.

I, of course, am just ribbing Joe D.

I don't like cake. I think at all the weddings I've been to, I've only had cake once, because by the time the cake is served, I'm too busy dancing/re-fueling with vodka tonics to want cake.

More wedding vows.

We wrote our own, incorporating the Hebrew, and I like to think it wasn't that saccharine. We saved money on the wedding itself by finding an inexpensive but funky reception site, doing the flowers and favors ourselves, and asking friends and family to pitch in for the setup, etc. We did spend a lot of money on the food, but it was worth it.

The wedding's for you, so make it a ceremony you'll like, and then throw a party you'll enjoy. 86 gets it right. Your friends are coming for you, and if they're whiny about the snacks, they're not really friends. (That said, my wife and I felt exactly the same way, since our wedding wasn't local for anyone.)

My experience has been that the enjoyment I've had at weddings has been directly proportional to the fun the bride and groom seemed to be having. The best wedding I've attended (other than mine) was one where the happy couple was visibly ecstatic, and it was infectious.

Programs: another feature I did not realize weddings were supposed to have. What's the point of a program when everybody knows what the sequence of events will be?

Boy, I love that cake.

What's the point of a program when everybody knows what the sequence of events will be?

Obviously, to give you an opportunity to make jokes with the International Phonetic Alphabet.

90 -- They won't have eaten on the plane, and will thus be grateful for anything you give them.

Think of it as a natural selection opportunity: anyone offended by your wedding isn't someone you want as a friend. (And relatives that you offend will leave you alone on future holidays -- a benefit not to be underestimated).

Joe D, now we need a volunteer John Brown.

It's a pity that this exciting thread is drawing news attention away from Edwards' announcement, but it's his fault for not informing us in advance. This may be a fatal blow to his chances, I'm afraid.

Do you think there's a future for me as a paid "speak now, or forever hold your peace" devil's advocate at weddings? I could just stand up and give a little anti-marriage speech and reveal whatever dirt there is about the bride and/or groom.

Probably there would be haters reacting irrationally to this, so we'd have to get laws passed making interfering with the "speak now" section of the wedding ceremony a federal crime. (In the course of time, licensed "speak now" advocates could be required by law at every wedding, perhaps accompanied by a squadron of armed guards).

Also, the groom should have to pass a breathalyzer test. (And just to keep the femiazis happy, the bride too).

I think that's a useful magazine. It has headings for "Common Dress Styles", "Common Wedding Customs", "Common Gifts" and so on. Christ knows, you can rely on the Yanks to be fucking common most of the time, so it is a good idea to have a magazine warning them not to at their weddings.

"Feminazis"

Do you think there's a future for me as a paid "speak now, or forever hold your peace" devil's advocate at weddings? I could just stand up and give a little anti-marriage speech and reveal whatever dirt there is about the bride and/or groom.

You need to get paid to do this?

John -- the current usage is "femifascists".

Added to my Life's To Do list: go to that cheesy place in the Poconos DA describes in 66. Awesome.

Joe, I have expenses.

Oh, da, my buddy went to that exact same hotel, for the exact same reasons, and stayed in that exact same room.

Very simple wedding for us: Eloped. The mayor married us. We hadn't thought about vows but the mayor had something that sounded nice so we said that. Two witnesses from the employees at town hall. We had one tape it using the rented video camera; the film is tilted bc he he held it w/one hand and used the opposite eye to view us. I've only watched it once and I never want to watch it again bc my voice is high and I sound like a child bride. Drove up to Montreal for a week. Had dinner with family a couple of months later.

I'm happy for anyone else who's getting married and has the wedding they truly want (although I'm not interested in hearing every detail). But I've never, ever regretted eloping; it was the right thing for us.

More importantly, with all this talk of cake, I might have to bake a cake today.

Besides not telling the caterers, I think it would be fun to have an ambush wedding where you spring it on your guests. Like, throw a big party but don't tell anyone it's a wedding then at 10 PM just announce "Oh! And now we're getting married -- and YOU'RE going to be the best man, etc." and everyone will freak out and cheer. The only problem with that plan is that some people might not come in from out of town for it or might flake who you'd want there.

Oh crap. I ruined the big surprise for UnfoggeDCon.

You didn't tell them whom you'll be marrying. (If you've decided)

130 -- What? Sausagely and 'Smasher are tying the knot? Now I'm really disappointed I can't make it.

But what about the tiers? We must have tiers!

You want tiers? Stand on the bride's foot.

The point about multi-tiered wedding cakes was that the top piece was meant to double as a Christening cake for the firstborn. Which makes assumptions about family planning and religion that are hopefully of a different time.

We had triple chocolate cake, by special request of the bride. YMMV.

(Which of them will be "wearing the tuxedo" IYKWIM?)

Which of them will be "wearing the tuxedo"

fucking hopefully neither, unless what I had previously assumed to be Communist propaganda is true and Americans actually do go to weddings in dinner jackets. In which case I direct you to the "Unspeakably Common Common Common as Muck Fucking Common Wedding Practices" section of "Chicago Bride" magazine.

I mean seriously you seppoes, we love you and all that, but what is the idea with going to your wedding dressed up as if you're pretending to be a provincial accountant at the opera?

Davies is the sort of revisionist we have learned to despise. Taking a strong stand on a superficial aspect of the problem, tuxedos, but unwilling to attack the root cause. He is objectively pro-marriage.

I love weddings; they're practically the only thing that makes me laugh these days.

137: Davies is absolutely right. If I hired you to come and make a scene about just impediments at any wedding I was involved in, I'd expect you to show up in a grey tailcoat and a grey top hat with a knotted tie, by God, or you wouldn't see a penny of your fee.

135: What sort of wedding practices do you advise for those of us who are common as muck? I think that's the technical definition of my social standing, given that my mother is involved in a nasty inheritance squabble over her rights to one eighth of a peat bog in County Clare. I may have missed a trick by not insisting that guests show up in tuxedoes, given that's apparently what's done among those of my social standing. At least Buck and the groomsmen had properly ruffled-shirted pastel tuxedoes, to match the dyed mashed potatoes in the buffet.

I've never been to a wedding where the guests showed up in tuxedos. Just nice suits and cocktail dresses.

Fight fiercely, LB. The peak oil singularity approaches, and inevitably we will find ourselves driving peat-fueled automobiles in the not-too-distant future.

Morning dress.

Land in Ireland is currently worth about a zillion a square inch. What Emerson said.

HOT TIP: hang a basket of oats over the exhaust of your peat-powered car to eliminate one step in your path to home-distilled whisky.

How do you get whisky from peat and cats?

sweet jesus, lb, do you really think the common muck of ireland *owned* land? does the word 'tenant' mean nothing to you? the name of 'boycott'?
you realize that you have just revealed that your ancestors were in the top tenth of one percent of irish aristocracy, probably anglo-irish to boot?

not that i would hold that against you. but a bit of perspective, please.

and back to 92--
i can't believe apostropher has been hanging with the rest of you this long, and none of you have ever taken him for a cake ride.
all the rest of us have been on cake rides, apostropher.
everybody does it.
if you haven't been on a cake ride yet, well.
and don't forget the cream frosting.

Kid, there's common and common. My wife's great grandfather, who was a Dublin tram driver, had a little bit of land outside town where he kept the chickens to make up their income. They had to sell it to pay medical bills; a house on half the plot went for nearly €2m a few years ago.

125 - I grew up in Maryland, and Caesers Poconos Resorts' television jingle ("You're sooo close!") is branded into my memory nearly as thoroughly as the Eastern Motors one. I'm super thrilled to know they still exist.

My great-grandmother made her wedding dress herself out of flour sacks that she had bleached white, softened, and then stitched together and embroidered.

149 - Should we ever have occasion to get Ogged another gift, we should sooo get him a weekend there.

Except he might get electrocuted if he brings his TiVo into that champagne flute tub. Hmmm. I'll have to think this through a bit more.

It would be wasted on Ogged. Try here instead.

Did you read the Times Magazine piece, apo? I sent it to LB, but she's barefoot and pregnant or whatever.

No, I haven't seen it.

Since there's a thread where everybody remembers the scale, style and planning of their or their friends' weddings every two or three months, I'm wondering if anyone remembers their own differently at different times. That is, does the whole experience have a fixed character in memory, or do you remember totally different things depending on mood? I seem to have been in an altered state, so I have kaleidescopic images to choose from, although I can easily give a plausible-sounding account whenever it seems appropriate.

Here. And now I have no idea how you know about Club Libby Lu.

Didn't LB post about the Times magazine article recently?

LB seems to think that we don't knwo what kind of a hoity-toity bunch the Dublin tram drivers were.

I discovered it randomly surfing photos on Flickr.

JE has LB confused with One Fat Englishman.

Didn't LB post about the Times magazine article recently?

Yes, that very one, and now I feel extra stupid for sending it to her. There was no link in her post, so I guess I didn't associate them, although I did think, "Hey, this is right up LB's alley!"

They look the same when they're standing sideways.

They look the same when they're standing sideways. Hell, I hope not, for her sake.

Emerson, you should move to England. In the C of E they have to read the wedding bans 3 times on separate Sundays to give people ample time to protest.

And yet they still get married over there. Sigh.

27: The Artist was the second; first was a short-lived mistake when I was nineteen. C'mon - spacemen on the green cheesecake? How could you not think that was the Artist? [With whom I tried not to hyphenate, btw.] You've got the Bridget right, tho'.

166: I think that says more about the state of the CoE than the rule on reading the banns. Marriage is pretty optional these days. If we'd written our own vows they'd have been roughly, "If we carry on like the last few years, only if anything happens to me you get my pension, is that OK?"

157 - There was a disturbing Washington Post article on Club Libby Lu a year ago-ish. "We already have a tiara at home, remember?" Michelle says. "From when you did the beauty pageant?"

169 -- By a rather suspisciously-named reporter...

169: Oooooh, that's what I want: Black leather and a fucking tiara.

Is it just me, or is there something weird about the eyes of the woman on the cover of the Chicago Bride mag?

Uh, and the nose.

And the mouth.

She looks like a photo composite of two different women. Seriously, cover the right side of her face, and then the left. Two totally different people.

167: "C'mon - spacemen on the green cheesecake? How could you not think that was the Artist?"

Well, yes, that's what particularly made me rethink.

"You've got the Bridget right, tho'."

I've not heard any word of her in decades; you? Jon S. is, of course, still Here And There as much as ever; has web pages, etc.