The Washington Post recently published an article about a new
Netflix show titled “Marriage or Mortgage”.
The reality show involves a friendly competition
between a wedding planner, Sarah Miller, and a real estate agent, Nichole
Holmes. In each episode, the Nashville-based professionals help couples decide
between the wedding of their dreams and their dream home.
The author of the article, Michelle Singletary, wrote “my husband and 25-year-old daughter watched “Marriage or
Mortgage” with me. About 15 minutes into Episode 8, my daughter couldn’t take any
more. She grabbed the remote to fast-forward to the end to see whether one
couple, together eight years and living in a two-bedroom apartment, would
choose to spend $20,000 on a wedding, including $4,900 budgeted for a bridal
dress.
It was so funny how frustrated my
daughter became, struggling to understand how a sales operation specialist and
an Uber driver would choose a pricey wedding celebration instead of taking the
$20,000 and using it as a down payment on a four-bedroom home with a spacious
backyard for them and their two young sons. Saving that much money couldn’t
have been easy for them, my daughter fumed.
My
husband left the room at the same point, muttering: “Crazy concept. It’s a
no-brainer. I’m out.”
“In the interest of full disclosure, I bought my wedding dress at
a consignment shop for less than $200. There was no open bar. I told guests who
complained that they could go home and drink their own liquor.
I
think it will delight romantics and disgust penny pinchers.”
Marriage or mortgage? At my age, it’s an easy choice – but it’s
not the right answer for everyone.
Marge and Dick Lennartson had three daughters (one of whom I
married) and all three of them had traditional large weddings in a Catholic
church.
The Brennan side of the family took a different path.
When Mary Brennan married Michael in 1976, it was in front of
a justice of the peace someplace in Virginia.
Tom and Sharon had two kids, Brian and Kelly.
When Kelly and Chris got married in December of 2016, it was
in front of a Justice of the Peace named Paul Simon in a courthouse in downtown
Tucson. You can read about the wedding at the link below:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2016/12/going-to-court-can-be-fun.html
When Brian and Kim got married last November, it was also in
front of a Justice of the Peace. Although the official was at the courthouse in
downtown Tucson, Brian and Kim weren’t there. They were in a motel room in Oro Valley,
and the entire wedding was done on Zoom.
Here’s the details:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2020/11/zoom.html
Although I’ve attended numerous traditional weddings, the ones
that were the most fun were the ones that were “non-traditional” – and Thom and
Alex’s wedding in the San Gabriel mountains in September of 2011 would probably
be at the top of the list. Here’s the details on THAT wedding:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2011/09/wedding-of-year.html
Around the time the Thom and Alex got married, Kim Kardashian
and her new hubby got married in an elaborate ceremony is a town not far from
where Thom and Alex got married – and the marriage lasted less than 90 days. A
few years later, Kim married Kanye West in Italy “where their daughter was
conceived” – and they are currently in the process of ending their union.
Prior to their “traditional” wedding in October of 2015 (after
Obergefell V. Hodge changed the law of the land), Mary and Fran had a “commitment
ceremony” on October 27, 2007, and it had many of the elements of a regular
wedding. Lots of guests, music to dance by, and LOTS of beer. At the church,
daughter Alex gave a great speech at the pulpit, but daughter Lauren “brought
down the house” when she sang, “Like a Rose” which brought tears to the eyes of
many of the folks in the audience.
Even today, the song still gives
me goosebumps:
The
Rose (2015 Remaster) - YouTube
The song in the title shown above was performed in the 1964
movie, “My Fair Lady”, and you can listen to it at the link below:
Stanley Holloway Get Me to the Church on Time MY FAIR LADY
1964 - YouTube
The film was the second highest grossing film of 1964, and it won
eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.
When my cousin Kay married Willy, it was on a sailing ship in the
Caribbean, and the ceremony was performed by the ship’s captain.
My cousin Mike and his family recently went to a family
wedding in Hawaii, which is probably the best place in the entire world to have
a wedding. Here’s the clan pictured below:
That, my dear, is entirely up to you.
We were always penny pinchers until we retired. Then we spent savings on very cheap trips to places we always wanted to see. It was worth the scrimping. The folks who pick wedding will have wonderful memories but that is not our style.
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