Our low-key and relatively inexpensive wedding
It was the very best day of my entire life! OK, not really. But I think we pulled it off pretty well and we had a good time.
Being a lesbian wedding, it was a D.I.Y. affair. We did everything ourselves, except for the DJ'ing and the actual cooking of the food; so up to the very last minute of the event we were working on it. In fact, when people started showing up early, I was not even dressed.
So why did we get married considering it does not give us any extra privileges or rights? The same reason straight people get married.
We had rings made for each other in August, and registered as DPs at my work in November, but by December we felt like we needed even more. So, with three months to plan, we got married on March 6, 2004. Just after our 2 year anniversary. Of course, what began as a simple, small reception grew into an "Event" with 50+ people. And despite my original plans, I wore a cream weddingy-type dress (from a consignment store, of course) and we said vows.
After three months immersed in the details, I can't say I feel like I missed out on anything. We are frugal people and somewhat attention-phobic, so I think this was the best possible arrangement.
How it all went down
The event: Because mrs. witchtrivets is in school and we are practical people, we planned our wedding for her Spring Break (which is conveniently close to our anniversary). We didn't have a traditional ceremony and there were no officiants or members of the wedding party. We just invited about 60 people for a big party with about 5 minutes of ceremonial kind-of-stuff. The ceremonial part involved my sister reading a non-preachy biblical section, and we, the witchtrivets saying vows directly to each other. The vows were three sentences long each and should have been pretty quick, except the soon-to-be mrs. witchtrivets started crying when I said mine. Then everyone else started crying. Except me, because I was holding her being my mean self saying, "Stop crying, I told you no crying." Then we kissed each other right in front of all these straight people. A first for many of them, I imagine. Then my stepfather gave a toast and that was it. Eating, drinking, and dancing commenced. We didn't exchange rings, because we had them specially made last summer and as soon as they arrived, we started wearing them. Seemed silly to take them off and then give them back.
Flowers and decorations: We had a kind of earthy theme, so I got about 70 little clay flower pots, had a stamp made with our names and date on it and we stamped each little one with our name/date, a leaf or a champagne bottle on it, tied a green ribbon on it, and put a little tealight in it. Those served as favors and table decorations. We went to the Whole Foods the morning of and bought whatever they had. Ended up being tulips and daisies, which was great. I spent about an hour cutting and arranging them into ivy bowls, vases, and little votive holders. I placed an arrangement of flowers and flowerpots on some green tulle, with silver star garland, and green vellum leaf confetti artfully (well, kind of) arranged around it.
Venue: We had the event at a warehouse that was once the Contemporary Art Museum in downtown Raleigh. That was free because we know the owner. We rented tables and chairs and set the whole thing up on the day before.
Drinks and food: We got all our drinks (alcohol and nonalcohol) from big-box mega stores. Then we ordered food and a huge and delicious sheet-cake from the Whole Foods, which they delivered at 4pm on the dot. All the plates and such were recyclable and we had some recycling bins out which people actually used. The only things we threw away were the paper napkins and the paper table cloths for the banquet tables. We saved the plastic (silver and white) round table cloths to use as drop cloths.
Our outfits: We went to a consignment store where mrs. witchtrivets found a nice dark grey Armani suit and I found a vintage bridesmaid dress (something old). She bought a brown/tannish silk shirt to wear underneath and I made myself a silk wrap to match her (something new). I bought a string of pearls at a bead store and made my own necklace and earrings. My mother loaned me a silver bracelet (something borrowed) And I wore my cowboy boots (I will not wear hose or heels) with frilly blue socks underneath (something blue).
Pictures: We didn't hire a photographer, but we had disposable cameras on the table and people took pictures on their own cameras and then sent them to us. People said they had a good time and I think they did. It was actually more straight people than our people (I guess that is the way of the world) but my partner's huge family flew down from up North to be here with us, and were totally cool.
The music: We hired a DJ based on a recommendation from a LGBT community group I volunteer with. We hired her because she is family, and she was very cool. However, she wanted to do more for us than we really wanted so I think she was disappointed.
