I am sure that someone somewhere could cavil, but I think it's a very happy story and hope with all my heart that it works out with joy for their lives.
As an aside, when I married, I designed the dress myself (early medieval) and had it made for a fraction of the cost of "wedding dresses" while my sister, my only attendant, wore a dress she had found a couple of years before that was evocative of the same period and suited her to perfection. (She had it copied in different material and coloring for her own wedding dress a few years later.)
I had known my husband since we were both teenagers and we had helped each other through some of the rough times thereafter; he was my closest friend as well as my lover. In 1976 dollars our whole wedding and cocktail reception, including my dress and the flowers and the music and the photographer, who mercifully stayed out of sight, as well as priest and minister cost $2,000. Our families did not have money to spare at the time; neither did we. We enjoyed something lovely and gracious without mortgaging our firstborn.
The marriage did not survive and flourish as we hoped, but the wedding stands out in my mind as a lovely way to marry. A brief loving ceremony, followed by a brief reception full of fun and brief enough that guests could not disgrace themselves by growing silly. No muss, no fuss. A taxi to the hotel for our wedding night, which was marvelous and punctuated by dinner at The Palm for a great steak.
If I ever do it again, I shall do it with what I learned from that reception--style rather than ostentation and let the happiness in your heart set the tone. The happiness in the heart is what one should truly want to share, even if it means a bring your own to a picnic in Central Park's Sheep Meadow for a champagne breakfast for ? many. (Lord, help me with that many omelettes--oops, sorry, I forgot you are atheist. Wince.)
The point is, there should be joy in such a union and it should be shared. (Did you find yourself having an irrational impulse to give her a wedding gift?)
I respect you all the more for sharing this woman's hope and joy. |
