I never imagined getting married much as a kid. Some girls do, I know. They fantasize about the "perfect wedding," often from a young age, and hold onto that image throughout their teens and 20's, until they nab that proposal. Then, they go out of their way to bring this fantasy to life, sometimes to the point of obsession; this is how we get horrible reality TV shows like "Bridezillas."

In my opinion, women are often too attached to the idea of the "perfect wedding."

A great argument can be made for keeping it simple. You'll still have a wonderful time with beautiful memories to cherish. And, you'll actually be helping the planet.

The Wedding Industry in America is a Monster

According to Huffington Post, the American wedding industry rakes in about $55 billion a year. That is great for wedding planners, caterers, dress designers, and wedding venues, but the whole concept of an elaborate wedding makes little practical or social sense.

Think about it. The average American wedding costs $31,213 (excluding the honeymoon). Whether the couple pays for it themselves, or the bride's parents do (as is still the tradition), that often means years of saving and/or going into an insane amount of debt to what amounts to a fancy party.

One of my cousins got married last month, and her parents paid for the wedding. I don't know how much they spent, but I know it wasn't cheap. My cousin's mother was going to retire this year, but had to put it off to pay for her daughter's wedding, and for the wedding of her second daughter, who is getting married next year. When you have to put off retirement to pay for a couple of weddings, something is really wrong in the world, in my opinion. 

Does spending that kind of cash on a party make sense to you? 

It certainly doesn't to me. When I think about the money some people spend on weddings, I actually feel kind of ill. That money could be used to feed entire starving villages in third world countries for a year or more. I just couldn't feel good about spending that money on a wedding.

Why Do People Spend Small Fortunes on Weddings?

The usual reason given is that they want to make the day special and memorable. But, a wedding can be both of those things without shelling out the cash for a small house on it.

Those who work in the wedding industry charge high prices for things because they can; the demand is there, and people are willing to pay the prices. A lot of this is because the idea of the elaborate wedding is now so firmly entrenched in the collective consciousness of America. 

If you don't throw a giant shindig for a hundred people or more, there's a sense that your friends, family, and co-workers will look down on you, or that you won't be keeping up with the Jonses of the wedding world. 

Couples today think they have to have large, expensive weddings to be taken seriously by others, and a whole industry has grown up around this desire to conform.

What Goes into a Typical American Wedding?

What you'll find at weddings varies by the desires of the bride and groom and their families, as well as by what is fashionable at the time. But, some of the more common features include:

• A custom-designed wedding dress for the bride
• A fancy venue of some kind (I've been to a few recently that were at historic buildings)
• A sit-down dinner
• A DJ or live band
• A professional photographer to take portraits of the wedding party between the ceremony and dinner
• Cocktail hour with an open bar and appetizers, while photos are being taken
• Customized decorations, often based around the new last name of the bride
• Flowers for the bouquet, bridesmaids, and general decor
• Wedding favors for the guests
• Centerpieces on the tables
• Wait staff to serve the guests
• A videographer to record the whole thing, from preparation to leaving for the honeymoon
• A professional wedding planner to put it all together

And that's not even taking into consideration the cost of the bridesmaids' dresses, the rings, and the bachelor and bachelorette parties!

It's madness. And, with all this pressure to put on the perfect show for their wedding, it's no wonder so many brides go kind of insane in the days leading up to their nuptials.

My youngest step-son's wife had a total meltdown the day before her destination beach wedding, because the florist sent the wrong flowers. She said her whole wedding was ruined....over flowers! It took her grandparents to show her how the flowers she received would work just fine, and, in doing so, talk her off the ledge.

I didn't even have flowers at my wedding. And here's where an alternative to the behemoth wedding industry comes into play.

(Me, at the beach wedding with the "flower disaster")

You Don't Have to Jump on the Wedding Industry's Bandwagon

Yes, I've been to those large, elaborate weddings, but I think they're obnoxious. How can anyone feel good about themselves for spending so much money on a party, when there are starving, homeless people in the world?

It wasn't always like this in the world of weddings. I remember going to plenty of wedding ceremonies as a kid that were small, intimate, and lovely. Somehow, sometime in the 1980's, things got wild and the wedding industry became huge. I think it ruined the whole wedding experience. 

I've never had as nice of a time at a huge, expensive wedding as I did at those small ones as a child. Not only do large weddings put pressure on the bride, they are tense for the guests, too. Smaller, less expensive weddings are just more relaxed for everyone. There aren't as many expectations to live up to, and you can do your own thing without feeling obligated to make a big production out of it.

My Actual Marriage Was Mostly a Secret, and That Was Fine

Like I said at the beginning, I never thought too much about what my wedding would be like when I was a kid. When I did imagine it, it was always something simple, with kind of a hippie touch to it.

When I actually DID get married, that's just what we did. 

I never asked my parents for money for my wedding. No real planning even went into it until about a month beforehand, and that was more logistics planning than anything.

First of all, we eloped about two and a half months BEFORE our wedding. Only my parents, brother, best friend, and grandparents knew I was married. Only my husband's best friend knew HE was married. We didn't even tell my husband's son, who was living with us at the time.

The only real reason we had a wedding later was because my mother wanted to see her only daughter be wed, and because we didn't want to keep it a secret from everyone we knew forever. A wedding at some point was going to be necessary.

How I Had the BEST Wedding for Only About $200

(My extremely affordable wedding that everyone loved....including us!

When we went to plan our wedding, we wanted to keep it casual and simple, because that's what kind of people we are, and the idea of an elaborate, expensive wedding made NO sense to either of us. 

Here's what we did.

1. Starting about a month before our desired "wedding" date, we asked my husband's brother if we could use his back yard for the event. Our own yard was more than big enough, but my new brother-in-law had sound and light equipment we could use if the wedding went past dusk.

2. Then, we went to the local print shop and bought some nice, patterned paper with matching envelopes. We brought it home and wrote our own invitations on our computer, using a fancy, cursive font. In all, we invited maybe 50 people.

3. We went to the mall and I picked out a sun dress from my favorite clothing store, Contempo Casuals. They've since gone out of business, but I bought nearly ALL of my clothes there from high school till I was about 25. That sun dress was my wedding dress, and I still have it, and still wear it sometimes. It wasn't an $8,000 dress I only wore once (what a waste of money!). It was more like a $30 dress I'm still wearing 20 years later. I got a matching necklace and pair of earrings, and some open-toed sandals at the same store, so my total for my wedding outfit was maybe $75 at most.

4. My husband already had clothes he thought were suitable for the hippie wedding we were throwing.

5. My grandmother gave me the wedding ring my grandfather gave her when they got married in 1950. It was a simple gold band, and fit me perfectly. My husband didn't feel the need for a ring, and I didn't care if he had one or not. He bought one in Woodstock, NY about five years later that he uses as a wedding ring, and got it for around $15 from a street vendor.

6. My husband arranged to have his band provide the music for our wedding for free. He even played with them for most of it, while I mingled with guests.

7. We each chose two attendants, who escorted each other down our makeshift aisle as "In My Life," by The Beatles played on a nearby CD player. We followed the attendants, escorting each other down the aisle. We had no ring bearer or flower girl.

(Our bridesmaids and groomsmen....nice and simple. :) )

8. I totally forgot to have a bouquet at all. It only occurred to me after that I hadn't had one to throw to my single girlfriends. We didn't have a garter, either.

9. My new sister-in-law (my brother-in-law's wife) and I made food for the picnic buffet the afternoon of the wedding. Just a few hours before I walked down the aisle, I was in her kitchen making potato salad and other food for our guests, with groceries we bought ourselves.

10. Guests who wished to do so brought alcohol. Everyone who wanted to drink did so from what other people brought. We got to keep the leftovers. We drink so rarely, we STILL have some rum and whiskey left over from that wedding 20 years ago.

11. My great-aunt bought us a real, three-tiered wedding cake with our names on it, and engraved napkins, because she wanted us to have them. We were grateful for the gift.

12. We didn't ask for presents, but people brought or sent them, anyway. Most people brought cash, which we used to take a road trip honeymoon to New England, where I got to meet the rest of my husband's relatives. We sent thank you notes we bought at the Hallmark store to everyone who brought or sent a gift BEFORE we left on said honeymoon.

13. My husband's best friend acted as the officiant, with vows we got from a book of wedding vows I bought at Barnes & Noble. Because we were already married, we didn't need a real officiant with actual qualifications to perform the ceremony at our wedding.

14. Everyone was requested to dress casually in the invitations. We had no tables or assigned seating, just a buffet table and chairs under a canopy.

15. My brother, who was taking a photography class in high school, acted as our official photographer for free.

The Verdict:  Everyone had a wonderful time! We got thanked so many times at that wedding for throwing such a fun, relaxed party. A family friend, who was divorced, even told me she would have our kind of wedding if she ever got married again. People stayed well into the night, because they were having so much fun, so no one wanted to leave. It was a success, and I have fond memories of it to this day.

And, guess what? I don't feel like I missed out on ANYTHING by not throwing a fancy, expensive wedding.

Conclusion--It's Not the Wedding that Makes the Marriage, it's the People

I've had a few relatives go for smaller weddings recently, and even elope. At the same time, I have friends who are planning really expensive ones and stressing out about every tiny detail of it, obsessed with the idea it must be perfect. I even had a friend who has been married for a decade have a "do over" wedding that was super elaborate and held at a fancy country club, because she and her husband initially eloped; she thought she was missing out by not having the "big" wedding.

I could go into all kinds of reasons why those big weddings aren't good for the environment, but they're probably obvious to you. I've already talked about how, if you've got tens of thousands or more to spend on a wedding, you'd be a much nicer person if you donated it to one or more charities where it would really make a difference in the lives of real people (or animals, if that's what you prefer to support....I do both, myself).

But, the real point of it all is that the pressure to conform to some societal expectation of what a wedding should be has nothing to do with whether or not the marriage will be a success. In fact, it might make the union more likely to fall apart, because unrealistic expectations were set at the start with that star-studded wedding. 

It's not the wedding that makes a marriage successful; it's the people in the union. If you're really in love and want to be together, you don't need the typical American wedding. You just need each other.

Even though my own marriage isn't the greatest anymore, due to many things that happen to relationships over the years, we're still together. And, even if we decide to NOT be together anymore one day, I'll have no regrets over our wedding. It's something I will ALWAYS look on with fondness. It was good for us, and great for our guests.

I say it's time to bring back the small, intimate wedding. Isn't intimacy what love is all about, anyway?