stage 3: depression

so i'm sure this is exactly how it happens. disbelief (wtf i'm going to get married? i'm not old yet!), some excitement (now i get to throw a great party with my friends and have an excuse to go somewhere tropical), and then depression. how can i/we afford this? like at all? i was lucky enough to live in douchebag innocence until now...i didn't realize how much these things cost. i thought i could have 100 people someplace relaxing outdoors, feed them bbq and keg beer, have a little matrimony happen midday, and toast the sunset playing volleyball and having a good time. all for about 4 grand or so - i mean why not? but no, it seems 10k gets you something conservative, a no-frills in-and-out procedure. with bud light.

the bugs up my ass:

1) land. i don't want some smoky VFW-like reception hall with lace doilies and mediocre lima bean veggie sides. i want a wide open beach, bonfires, blankets in the sand, or a grassy park with picnic tables and grills. state parks in MA and RI say no booze. i heard a chick got married in an NH park and just had to pay police officers to be there for the alcohol. she actually had a pretty ideal wedding, and it cost 15-18k. they didn't even have a cake. if i had good friends/relatives nearby with a nice large backyard, i feel like i would be halfway there.

2) weather. if i do this shizzy outdoors, i can't control the weather. that means i need one of those gay tents. which i'm sure costs more than my car did. literally.
if i do it indoors, where that isn't the tackiest, most expensive wasteland?

3) booze. gotta have it or nobody will come, and i don't blame them cause i wouldn't either. i can't stand the idea of dropping loads of cash to give my friends the "$5 per dixie cup, mostly ice and shit liquor" bar. i can't afford an open bar either. what i want is to bring my own kegs and cans of decent brews. nowhere will let you do that.

4) food. if have to drop a hojillion dollars on a place to serve it, i can't pay for good food. why eat? why not throw trashbags of powerbars at the doors and say, dig in if you get snacky?

all this mades me sad. if i'm going to go into debt over it, which it appears is unavoidable, i'd at least like it to be memorable and fun. that would double my cost though. and who wants to go 7 grand in debt for a taco bell wedding? fuck that.

so yeah we should just elope. unfortunately that's lost all appeal to me. sure, let's drop 2 grand on a trip to yuppie mecca where i can sweat my balls off in a dress wrinkled from overhead storage. then some stranger can take a picture of us smiling, and put his thumb in the corner, and then we can use that as a christmas card. "yeah look we really did get married. how about that. after this picture we went off ot our hotel room and remaked upon how anti-climactic it all was to be herded through the plastic wicker matrimonial arch like cattle, with all the other couples. most romantic thing ever." and then what, throw a party when we get back...to the tune of more money. now we're back at square one with a huge $ estimate. and i got married in some benighted land by the jiffy-lube of priests, and nobody was even there to be happy with us. and i bet the beer sucked.



i see no point to doing more than walking down to the JOP after breakfast some morning and signing on the dotted line if my friends and family aren't going to be around to have a good time and celebrate with us.

all this makes me think maybe it would be better to wait till i'm done with school and can actually afford a semi-decent affair without signing up for food stamps. and by then i'll probably be preggers, that's hot. or have a kid already. they could be the flower girl, how cute.

puke.

and so the cycle of misery and disbelief continues to swim in my head.