Pea Shooters and Curtain Material: The 'Perfect' Wedding

Today is our 15th Anniversary.  In many ways this has flown by and I can remember July 25th 1998 like it was yesterday! But on the other hand, so much has happened in those years and we have both grown and changed so much as well.  We are completely different people really. The pictures show what people around us saw at the time, but I didn't: we were SO young! But here we are 15 years later, still happy, still married, still in love.

At the time I had just graduated from University, literally a few days before the wedding, in fact. I was about to go on for one more year of study; teacher training. Andrew had worked for 2 years. During the time that I was doing my final exams, we were completing the wedding details and also buying our first house. So for the actual wedding, we had no big savings account or massive budget.

In Ireland today, despite the recession, the austerity measures and all the accompanying woes and misery, the average cost of a wedding has actually risen! This is according to a 2012 article I read, which puts the number at 21000-ish Euro. Twenty One Grand? Wow!  The 3 biggest costs are generally the venue, the honeymoon and the wedding party's clothes, at over 6 grand, over 3 grand and over 2 grand respectively. Not unrelated to this is the fact that the average age to get married in Ireland at the moment is in fact 33, a full ten years older than Andrew was at our wedding. This may account for some of these figures - I guess you can do a lot of saving in those extra years! I should say at this point, that I would absolutely not criticise how anyone chose to spend their money or what they wanted their dream day to include. It's a day people plan for so long and it is a unique occasion for every couple. 

Over twenty thousand Euro though, that is a LOT of money. Having said that, if you go on to Pinterest and do a search for Weddings, there are an unbelievable amount of ways to get through 21 grand and more, easily! Embellished Vintage Heels anyone? Or a Rustic Distressed Chalkboard Sign for $100 telling people to grab a drink while they wait for the couple? Personalised Wine Sets as the Wedding Favours? This is just the tiniest glimpse of the multitude of ideas on Pinterest - google Pinterest Weddings when you have some time to spare, like 5 hours.

Many of the ideas are actually very cute and some of them are cost saving ones also.  But they are often hugely elaborate as well: ideas for cute photos with your bridesmaids (of which there generally seem to be at least 6 in the pictures) before the wedding, customising the bridal shower, super creative and unique invitations. Of course, none of these things are necessarily silly or bad!  And some of them are brilliant and very fun ideas. But the pressure to have this perfect day and capture all these perfect moments, with perfect hair, just seems immense.  If I was a bride-to-be now, I think I would find Pinterest overwhelming and very intimidating. 

In our case, we didn't have a bean. We hadn't been living together yet and any money we did have was going towards the house really. I don't remember exactly what it all cost and who paid what, but I do know we cut a few corners and spent as little as possible.

So, the dress and the suit: The best man wore his own suit. Andy got a suit from M and S. We got my sister's bridesmaid dress on sale in Debenhams, for about 20 pounds, if memory serves and I guess she wore her own shoes.

I was in Germany for the third year of my degree when I got engaged. At the end of the summer term, my parents picked me up and we drove to Switzerland to visit a friend. I hadn't yet really thought much about the logistics or cost of getting a dress, apart from the usual daydreaming and sketching that every woman, if she is being honest, will tell you she has done since she was 6. I was chatting to our hostess and she told me she had bought material for curtains in Thailand, but it hadn't turned out to be right for the purpose. Perhaps I would like to have the material for my wedding dress?

Um, curtain material for my wedding dress? I stayed polite and said that was very kind and I would love to see it. Well, she appeared with a roll of cream raw silk and just gave me the whole lot. It was stunning! Once I was back in England for my final year, I found a dressmaker, drew her a basic sketch and the whole thing was done for 200 pounds sterling. Mind you, I did have to argue with the dressmaker, who wanted me to wear a hoop and who wasn't at all pleased when I had her take out a whole layer of petticoats.  She might have been happier working for the dressmaker in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding...

The car: Andrew's fiesta was the carriage for the day!  Not very glamorous, but completely fine!  Andrew's uncle was the photographer; he did a fantastic job. And the pictures were taken in his Grandma's beautiful garden.

The cake: my Mum made it!  And iced it, and decorated it with flowers, which we got alongside my bouquet on the Wedding Day. It looked amazing - and she loved doing it! Especially as she had been in a different country for most of the lead up, so this was a way for her to be a big part of the day in the end.

Our main costs were the venue, the food, the DJ and the flowers. One important cost was also the peashooters.  Yes, really. We had been to a few charity balls together and they always had these colourful tubes on the table and pint glasses full of small balls.  Andrew was eager to have these at our wedding, and they were loads of fun! It took some people a while to work out what they were for, but once they did, all hell broke lose! In the end my Dad had to stand up and get people to stop so the food could be served. Friends of my parents mentioned this to me the other week as a memory they have of the day, so it made an impression! Mind you, I don't think I've seen this on Pinterest...

It was a great day. Not a picture perfect, super glamorous, Pinterest worthy day perhaps, but a very very happy one! We were absolutely blessed with the weather, the service was lovely, the speeches were witty, the food was nice... And then: the honeymoon. Friends of my parents offered us their little cottage in Yorkshire, for free.  It was such a perfect gift from them and we had a wonderful week.

So I look back on a happy day. I don't think it could have been any happier, had we spent an extra 15 grand on it! And here we are 15 years later and ultimately it doesn't matter what car we drove or whether I really did have a dress made of curtain material - none of those things make for a happy marriage in the end. That comes through love, communication, trust and effort. And while we didn't have a massive wedding budget, so far, we've never been short of any of those assets.