Was the Wedding Worth It?

I have been married for two days and the former fubby is now officially the hubby. Hurray! Before my wedding I wrote a blog entry about the cost of our wedding and a coworker asked me to tell him whether or not the wedding was worth it after I go through it. I promised that I will write an entry about it since I will be out of the office for about two weeks, so here’s a summary of the Baglady’s wedding afterthoughts.

The Worthwhile

• Seeing Friends and Family — Shortly before the wedding the hubby said that I should be more excited about it because only a big event such as our wedding could bring so many of our friends and family from far away to see us. I think that’s very true because friends and family were the most important part of our wedding. Without them we wouldn’t have a big event anyway. Also, we saw quite a few friends of ours that recently got engaged after us. The hubby thinks that our engagement and subsequent marriage prompted some people to pop the question. I don’t think that’s the case, but I’m happy for all of the engaged couples.
• The Toasts — My dad was really excited to do a toast. He was pretty nervous, and made some funny mistakes in his speech. My mom and I couldn’t stop laughing during his toast, but apparently other guests thought it was very moving and cried. Perhaps we just know my dad too well and know how hilarious he is. My maid of honor also gave a really awesome toast, and revealed to everyone that I said in high school that I never want to get married and I believe that babies are technically parasites (by definition, babies are parasites when they’re in the womb). Anyway, I thought the speeches are pretty priceless.
• The Reception Hall — We got married at the Freedom Hall and Gardens in Santa Clara. It’s actually nestled amongst a bunch of office buildings right next to the Transmeta corporation. Weddings are apparently happening next to CPU creation every week. Who knew? If you read my previous article you will see that we spent around $9500 for the reception. What I didn’t mention is that this price included the cake, the DJ, food for 140 people, unlimited alcohol and soft drinks, and an outdoor ceremony. In my mind it’s very well worth it since booking each item separately would cost much more than this. The cake and food were all wonderful and the DJ definitely worked with us before the wedding so everything went very smoothly. The Freedom Hall is very popular and they told us they already have reservations for 2009 wedding dates. I must say I was definitely happy with my purchase.
• The Flowers — We spent the morning before our wedding shopping for flowers at the San Francisco Flower Mart on Brannan with my hubby’s godmother. We got flowers for fourteen tables, vases, bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, the cake, and the flower girl basket for a little less than $200. The flowers were beautiful at our wedding because the hubby’s godmother did a fabulous job arranging them. The hubby thought the flower mart was pretty cool because it was just fun to look through all the different flowers, and I loved that it was all wholesale. I have heard of florists charging $200 just for a few bouquets, so I was very happy with how it turned out.
• The Money Dance — The hubby teased me that I only did the dance to get money because I seriously can’t dance, but after we did the dance he found it to be a very fun thing to do because we got to talk to a lot of our friends and family one on one. Also, some people made pretty funny origami with their money and pinned a bowtie and tail on the hubby. One of his groomsmen pinned an IOU on his back. His uncle also taped a long string of expired credit cards on us and said that he needed them back after the wedding. It was just a very fun thing to do and I would recommend it even if it’s not really part of your tradition.

The Painful and Annoying

• The High Heels — The heels really hurt me throughout the entire wedding, and I fell down once during the reception. I also walked super slowly during the procession that they had to play the wedding march twice. The hubby said he got worried for a little bit there since he couldn’t see if I was coming up to the arch or not. I am already klutzy to begin with and heels really don’t help.
• The Wedding Dress — I should have paid much much less for this piece of garment. It got pretty dirty after being dragged around on the grass and serves no purpose now. Having an outside wedding with a big train is not a very good idea, but hopefully the pictures look nice.
• The Bachelor Party — Well, the hubby’s groomsmen decided to take him paintballing the night before the wedding, and put him through the gauntlet where he was shot at by fifteen guys with no chance to fire back. The result was a very bruised hubby. The good thing is that most of his bruises are covered, but he still has huge patches over his arms that look like he was tattooed and spots all over his back that look like hickeys. On the day of the wedding he also had two large bruises on his head that was thankfully covered by his hair. He said he had fun “being a man”, but he is in pain now.

My mom always says that when you buy something and you’re happy with it then it is worth it, and so I would say the wedding was worthwhile. The good things definitely outweigh the bad in having a wedding. Nevertheless, I would never EVER do it again because I got a hubby now. We will go on our honeymoon to Kauai tomorrow, and hopefully it will be as smooth-sailing and fun as the wedding. I probably won’t write from Kauai, but I will be back!

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