Weddings

This one was written a while ago – but it seemed appropriate to bring out on 6/26/2015.

I want to get married. I want a big church wedding, with flowers, and candles, and brides maids and grooms men, and as much pomp and as much circumstance as the building can hold. Actually that’s all a lie. I haven’t set foot in a church in ages, flowers make me sneeze and make my eyes water, candles from anywhere other than Illuminations are an abomination, brides maids assumes that there is a female involved or a person playing a female role which is not me in the least, and pomp and circumstance are highly overrated in today’s society.

That being said. I want a fast, efficient, process driven, project plan scheduled meeting, where I sign a piece of paper, a notary watermarks it, and a legally authorized official says “it’s done!” I don’t want to wear a veil, even if properly tszujed, I don’t want to pay a ton of money for a tuxedo that I will never wear again (despite the recommendations that every man should own one good tuxedo), and I don’t want to spend hours registering for things at Macy’s, Cost-Plus, or Best Buy that no one wants to buy me anyway.

I don’t like getting gifts and I question the value of surprises.

Birthday’s are always a chore because there is something wrapped that will come as a complete surprise, unless of course it’s from my amazon.com wish list, in which case I can just click that button that says “show me what’s been purchased” and the surprise is over. Weddings are a different story. Nothing is a surprise, because you asked for it all. In fact, registering for a wedding is one of the most pretentious things that I can imagine.

How dare you tell me what to bring to your wedding. If I want to make sure you get 8 toaster ovens and 3 crock pots, I’m darn well going to do it. Planning the gifts that you will receive is materialism to the highest level. And people, you don’t really want the sterling silver ash tray set. Half of the people who register for crap like that don’t even smoke, and don’t even know how to polish it. Basically it verdigris (turns green) before they remember what it was, and they set it on the back patio, under the tiki torches and use it as a cheap ash tray for their summer barbecues. Eventually the person who gave it to them will notice it and feel utterly rejected that the $75 gift is relegated to having a puddle of water and soggy ashes in it because it rained last night and the host didn’t bother to clean it up.

When I get married, I don’t want a wedding, I just want the reception. That’s where all the fun happens. I don’t want gifts, if anything I want cash that I can spend in any way I want. That way, if I decide that I just can’t live without that vegetable juicer or that automated onion slicer, I can go buy those things myself, and then be the only one to blame when I realize after 4 years that I haven’t even used them at all, and they wind up in a moving sale when we move into a bigger house, and they sell for 1/50th what I paid for them.

Come to think of it, I’d rather people not even give me cash. Let’s just avoid that whole self-guilt thing that would be caused, because being the awesome, wonderful, non-materialistic person that I am, I just want my friends and family to be there, dancing to awesome music, drinking tons of champagne or red wine, eating from the elaborate buffet, and enjoying themselves and sharing the day with me and my new husband. OK, reality check. Who cares about all that crap, bring on the CASH!

So, instead of saving up money for an elaborate wedding, I’d funnel all the money into the biggest reception possible. Given how hugely popular I am, renting out a ballroom at a hotel or resort would be the best option. Obviously, everyone I know will want to be there, and that can easily fill a small room. But the point of having a reception is that you invite everyone you’ve ever met before in your life, to maximize the number of useless gifts you can receive. If you go with the cash option as I mentioned before, you can actually recover all the cost of the reception, pay for your honeymoon, and a new car at the same time. It’s amazing how much cash you can raise if everyone gives you $30, instead of buying you another useless hand mixer.

Let’s add this up. Say you invite 50 people, each bringing $30 for the cause. That adds up to $1,500.00 right there. That covers a lot of cases of wine, and tons of ready to serve buffet food. But why stop there? Use the network you’ve been building! Start sending invitations to every distribution list you are on, whether at work or outside the company. Now you’ve increased your invitation list to, let’s say 750-1000 people. If we use the standard statistical estimate that you’ll get approximately 75% of the invited population to actually attend, and we assume 1000 receipts, you’ve got a list of 750 people. Guess what that means? We’re talking $22,500.00 baby!

With that kind of cash, you’re on your way to a week-long cruise around the south of Africa! Down payment on the new useless H2 SUV? No problem! A couple thousand for new granite tops on the kitchen counters? Done! A reception cover charge is the way to go for the couple of the 2000’s. We’re already used to cover charges for every other party we go to, so why not a wedding reception?

So now you have your money problems solved, and you don’t have to worry with returning useless gifts to the store to recover cash that way (you know you’ve all done it so don’t get all huffy, I’m just pointing out the facts), you’ve had the reception of a lifetime, with all of your friends, acquaintances, and really anyone who was willing to pay a $30 cover charge to a mega-dance party. What more could you ask for?

Personally, I’m thinking of having an 80’s cover band attend, and filling the entire place with foam and making everyone show up in only their underwear. For that, I’m thinking we can go to $50 a person. $37,500.00 would be a great down payment on a new BMW 7 series…