Wednesday Wedding Day: If I had a million dollars

Last year before we were engaged I wrote a post describing what I would want for a hypothetical wedding. Luckily, I think I'm going to get everything I want - or at least most of it. There won't be polaroids or silly clothes because we just didn't get around to that part (plus, our friends did that in September). And I have no idea if peonies will be possible because we're going with whatever's in my mom's yard or at the wholesale place (and I doubt there will be peonies at Trader Joe's). Regardless, I'm pretty happy that just about everything on my list of what I wanted a year ago will be a part of our wedding which is just over six weeks from now. (SIX WEEKS AAAAH!!!)

For the past few days I've been thinking about what I would want if money were no object, if we could have any fantasy our hearts desired. I thought and thought, and came up with some things that would be nice to have but by no means necessary, and so they didn't make the cut. But oh, if we had umpteen amounts to spend...

First, we'd pay for everyone's airfare and lodging and transportation so money wouldn't keep people from coming. I don't know that we'd have it in a different place (I love the place where we're getting married) but we'd definitely have a full bar instead of just wine and beer. And prosecco, because it's yummy. There would be both lunch and dinner, and maybe even a midnight snack, all made from locally grown or sourced comestibles. We'd rent a bunch of paddleboats so people could go out on the lake if they'd like, and also rent a photobooth, the kind that prints out a strip of four photos, so people could have silly photos to take home. We'd have a live satellite video feed so the people who couldn't attend could watch at home on the internets. And I'd hire my favorite wedding photographer who both grew up in and lives in Sonoma County and was an indiebride herself (which is how I learned of her). I spent a few hours yesterday reading her blog and drooling over her photos. Don't get me wrong, I love our photographer and I'm so excited to see what he comes up with, but if we'd had an extra four grand to drop on wedding photos, it would have been with Jessamyn Harris. She deserves every penny she gets, I think.

We'd have a party that lasted all day and into the night, with a live band that played every song we wanted to hear and kept the crowd going. Heck, if money were no object whatsoever we'd hire the Barenaked Ladies. I'd have found someone to make us a cake that looks like this or this or some other nerdy thing. Or maybe I'd just hire Charm City Cakes to make something unique - they made a hairy coo for someone's wedding this one time, I saw it on TV. Of course, then we'd have to have the wedding within driving distance of Baltimore, so I guess that wouldn't work.

Instead of renting, we would have had the full Scottish dress (kilt and Prince Charlie and accessories) handmade (in Scotland! and we'd go there in person so it would fit perfectly) to fit Dan and his groomsmen, and my dress would have probably looked similar but handmade by someone in silk (maybe even hand-dyed silk!), and it would be two shades of green rather than white and green. My bridesminions would have similar, in dresses they'd all designed so they'd like them enough to wear again. And after the wedding, we'd give away everything we'd bought (gorgeous linens, china, glassware, decor, etc.) to someone else who needed that stuff, to save them from having to rent or buy it.

Reading back over my little fantasies, I am reminded how lucky we are that we're able to have the wedding we want for as little as it is costing us. We could spend tens of thousands more (or even hundreds of thousands) and it wouldn't make us any more married, or any happier at the end of the day. Because it's still just a party, a one-day event, and I think it's going to turn out pretty well. (But I do kinda wish we could afford that photo booth.)