How the Hutches got Hitched, Part 2: The Ceremony

Mr. Hutch had popped the question, and now it was time to get down to the business of getting married. And that shit is a business. I wanted to avoid as much of it as possible.

Mr. Hutch would have liked to elope just the two of us, but it was important to me to celebrate with our friends and family in some way. I don't know how to describe the feeling exactly, but I felt like the declaration we were about make should be said out loud. To people other than ourselves. Like it had more gravity that way or something. And that it warranted acknowledgement from the wider world.

So we settled on having an intimate ceremony in our backyard before just our immediate family (parents, siblings and their spouses and children). That was 18 people total. It was on a beautiful Sunday morning, Mother's Day in fact.  The only cost to getting married in our backyard was the champagne and orange juice that we toasted with.

We then headed to a local brewpub, where we hosted brunch for 50 people. After brunch, everyone was invited to move to another brewpub (is there a theme here?) for a no-host afterparty. Then Mr. Hutch and I sailed off into the sunset or something.

The entire event came in just under the budget of $5000. Which is still a lot of money. There are ways to do it for a lot less, but I feel like we struck a good balance of saving where it counted while still hosting our friends and family. So where did we save?

I think it starts with the ring. I still don't understand the whole engagement ring/wedding ring thing. Who needs two rings stacked on top of one another? I just gave Mr. Hutch the engagement ring before the ceremony and he put it back on me. One is enough. Mr. Hutch doesn't even wear a ring, so no cost there.

Next was the dress. I started looking for simply a white dress, not a wedding dress per se. It was Sunday brunch after all. In the end I actually surprised myself by buying a designer wedding dress, but it was off the clearance rack because it was a buttery yellow color rather than the standard white. And marked down from $760 to $350. Again, still a lot of money, but I have since sold it for $200 so I think it was a pretty good deal. I loved it, and felt beautiful in it.

Our biggest cost was all the food and booze at our brunch. It was important to me that we provide everything for our guests and I'm so happy we did. It was amazing. I think that hosting a brunch rather than an evening event really helped keep the cost down. I think people ate and drank less than they would have at an evening wedding, but were just as satisfied. I believe the final tally came in around $50 per person for unlimited food and drinks.

Limiting our number of guests was by far the biggest thing that we could have done to keep on budget. This is not easy to do, and is a very personal choice. I had a few bouts of guilt over excluding people, but I felt strongly that it was what we had to do. I also had the overwhelming sense of wanting to be surrounded by people that we were very close to and that we knew supported our marriage. I did not want to look around the room and feel indifferent about any face that I saw. In that sense, limiting our guests was incredibly freeing. We did not invite our single friends and family to bring a +1, and we asked that no children (other than infants who couldn't be away from their mamas) attend. This won't work for everyone, but it did for us.

We also really did away with almost all of the little extras that go into a wedding. We had no attendants (our mothers signed the registry as our witnesses - it was Mother's Day after all) so there were no costs associated with that, though I did pay for my mom and my sister-in-law to have their hair done with me. We didn't have any flowers or other decoration for the reception since the site itself is so beautiful anyway. It was a nice surprise though, to walk into the reception and see that the brewpub had put some flowers on each table. I wasn't expecting that. We made jam with raspberries from our garden for our guests to take home as favours. A very talented friend made our invitations as our wedding gift, which was awesome. They were simply postcards - no envelope, no extra anything enclosed. We directed people to our free wedding website for all the details and to RSVP. I did carry a bouquet but purchased the flowers wholesale and just wrapped them in some ribbon that I already had. As an aside, I tied my dad's wedding ring on there to carry him with me that day too.

I really tried not to buy too much into the business of getting married. Sure, I had a ring, flowers, a new dress, a party and all kinds of other things that were really not necessary to get married, but I feel we struck a decent balance by not having too much else. I'm just thankful that I got married before Pinterest.

Thank Heavens...

For two-year olds that still fit into clothing meant for 6-9 month olds. Particularly when the item of clothing in question is this stunner: