I Hate That I Want a ‘Wedding’

How I went from “Let’s get married in an antique train car!” to “I wish I could afford this hotel ballroom.” in 11 neurotic steps.

Step 1. Immediately post-engagement, I know that I don’t want a traditional wedding. I’m not a traditional girl, I don’t want to limit my decorating choices to 2 matching colors, and I just don’t get chair covers. I used to have pink hair- I can’t have matching pink bridesmaid dresses! I’m joining Offbeat Bride!

Step 2. OMG I love all these crazy creative ideas I’m finding- especially for venues! People get married in caves! In bookstores! Underwater! They have 5 total guests and wear handmade leather bustiers and use tin can centerpieces and it all looks awesome! I’m so amped to plan my alterna-wedding!

Step 3. Max out on non-traditional ideas like getting married in the heart of a bird sanctionary, in a hot air balloon, an antique bike shop, a discovery museum, an abandoned roller skating rink, etc. Adjust food choices thematically from hot dogs to custom grilled cheese sandwiches to fancy foodie strolling dinners to cake on a stick.

Step 4. Notice lots of other brides start off with ‘cool’ ideas (a mountain top! A fishing boat! A grungy rock club!) and end up at catering halls. Wonder briefly why they ‘quit’ and continue to research airplane hangars and medical-oddity museums.

Step 5. Realize that I do want: to hold the reception on a Friday or Saturday night; to serve dinner (or at least a lot of food); to have said dinner be yummy and of a good quality; to have seating for elderly and, well, everyone; to have everyone in the same room; to have normal, plentiful bathroom facilities; to have a dance floor and lots of rump-shaking dance music; to spend no more than the national average; to invite a reasonable but not especially small number of family and friends; …basically, I want a lot of things found in ‘typical’ weddings, afterall. Hm.

Step 6. Chic little art galleries, local bars and cramped historical homes do not offer enough space for the whole guest list. Also, when reviewing said guest list, the mantra “I’m alternative and my wedding will reflect that, damn it!” fades a little when I try to picture our 80 year old grandmothers seated inside large industrial blinged-out shipping crates, or perched on teensy mod stools placed precariously above indoor lakes in riotously neon nightclubs. Or my north Jersey, Coors Lite-loving cousins settling in at the test kitchen of a renowned (by me, anyway) liquor store to sample cocktails with no fewer than 11 ingredients each. Most weddings are ‘typical’ because when you’re dealing with 125+ people of different backgrounds and tastes, the few things the majority of them all agree on are that they want decent food, plentiful (normal) drinks and good music (and a comfortable place to sit). Hence the prolificacy of catering halls.

Step 7. Begin to absorb just how much effort would need to go into a lot of these unconventional wedding locations.

{Here is an incomplete list of things I would need to find, pay for, and coordinate myself: tables, chairs, linens, cutlery, glasses, bar set up (mixers, mix-ins, fruit, garnishes, shakers, blenders, ice, places to keep ice, portable refrigerators etc), liquor, permits, insurance, bathroom facilities, clean up/trash collecting, security and staff, food, drink, cake, servers, people to place centerpieces, hang decorations, bring out the cake and coordinate dinner time… oh, and each of these things has its own fee, plus tax, plus often a 20% gratuity. So sure, the rooftop of a former piano factory turned loft apartment building is cheap on it’s own, but when combined with everything else, it becomes more expensive than the nice restaurant next door. And that hotel in New Jersey is a lot more feasible for our guests than the base of an Icelandic volcano. Also, the hotel and restaurant have in-house event planners included in the price who do all the worrying for you. Read that last part again “ …[person] who will do all the worrying for you.” A designated worrier. Where have you been my whole anxious, OCD life?}

Step 8. Realize that while I haven’t exactly been dreaming of my wedding my whole life like a David Tutera worshipping pouf princess, I have had a picture of it in my mind, and radically, it involves me wearing a white dress and walking down the aisle of my mother’s church. It also definitely included me being nervous about nothing but saying “I Do” in the right place. I did not dream I’d be worrying that the bathroom trailer got dropped off in the caterer’s spot or that the DJ booth won’t fit through the ancient front door or that the pigeons haven’t been completely roused from their winter roosts in the ceiling. 

Step 9. Wrestle with my opposing visions of getting married in an architecturally beautiful but probably impractical former Carousel House (without heat or A/C, kitchen facilities or bathrooms), and my vision of enjoying my wedding day without being my usual bundle of nerves multiplied by being my own defacto wedding coordinator. Decide that maybe if I want to have a cool, weird wedding that only I and a few friends will truly enjoy, I should just do that with them, and not try to squeeze 100 of our unwitting family members into a tugboat. But if I want 100 people to come out and have a good time with us, in this case, compromise is best. Finally beginning to see that many of those offbeat ‘quitters’ were probably just smart girls who wanted to make their guests happy, as well as avoid giving themselves an aneurysm.

Step 10. Remember that personality is all in the details. By choosing a venue that takes care of the large but tedious parts (tables, chairs, food, liquor etc) you can focus on the cool, fun stuff, in smaller and easier ways. In high school, wearing green velevt Doc Martens was not enough for me- I had to pair them with, say, outfits constructed entirely of vinyl. As an adult, I am pleased to say I have tempered my propensity for excess. (I’ve found that many other people are pleased to learn this about me, too.)

Step 11. Step 11 is yet to be completed but involves fully committing to my resolve to make a compromise between what I want and what’s best for everyone, and will culminate in choosing a middleground venue. Which in a way, I think, makes me even more offbeat, because I’m not falling into the MeMeMeMeMe/It’s MY day/Bridezilla mentality, which to me is like subtley or not-so-subtely telling everyone from guests to your fiance to SUCK IT. And choosing to be practical is also Offbeat- at least when you contrast it with insisting you enter the reception on wires descending from the ceiling, or arriving in a fake pumpkin carriage, or spending a year's salary on one day. In the age of bridezilla, being reasonable is revolutionary.

I want to add that I LOOOOVE so many of the offbeat ideas I see on Offbeat Bride, and in fact love a lot of the ideas I mentioned above, and give mad props to anyone who pulls them off. Unfortunately I’m realizing that many of them, location-wise, are just not feasible for us, both financially and for the sake of our guests- and my overthinking worrywart personality. Low stress trumps originality in this case. {A message from my mental health advisor.}