How our “small wedding” got BIG

Well as many of you know, I’s married now! Lol. My new hubby asked me to marry him for the first time a few years ago. I don’t even know when it was because I didn’t pay him no mind. I thought he was kidding. Well however many years, months and days later we have finally tied the knot and I’m so glad it’s over! Whew. I was feeling like the process was aging me. What an emotional roller coaster! Only once for me for sure. (Our video Wedding Album with all the pics is at the bottom of the page!)

I mean I planned on something super small and ever so simple but I got all bridezilla on myself and took it a little bit bigger. For starters I knew I really have always wanted to have a huge beautiful wedding with hundreds of guests and everything super lavish. I also have parents that would pay for such a wedding in this dream. In reality, that was not the case. First off I live 3,000 miles away from my family, friends and sorority sisters. Second Ray & I can barely rub 2 dimes together and my family ain’t coming up off of no cash so squandering on frivolities was out the window. I figured a justice of the peace wedding would get the job done for us. The original plan was to just get married and have a reception and stuff at a later time with my friends and family.

Some day back in June I got sick of my boyfriend yapping about getting married so we went down to the hall of records and got our marriage license. They told us that we had 90 days to get married or the $114 I had just spent would expire and we’d have to purchase another license. Well that kicked my laid back attitude in the butt. I started to think about a big wedding again and I decided that I needed to hurry up and get married before I talked us into something way beyond our means.

Since I wasn’t getting the wedding of my dreams I figured it should at least be on a good luck day. I went through tons of websites looking for good luck wedding days and auspicious wedding dates based on our birthdates etc. That got so exhausting because all different countries, cultures and religions were telling me different things. I was trying to cross reference dates and the whole thing just got out of hand. Then I came across something that said that this is the year of the widow.
Basically saying that being married anytime this year would end in the husband dying soon. After that I decided that this luck stuff was for the birds and decided to just leave “luck” in Gods hands. I chose July 16th about 10 days ahead and didn’t think too much about it. I called the Justice of the Peace and told them that I wanted to get married on Tuesday, but they only marry people on Fridays. Oh no! I wanted to get married on my days off because I didn’t want to deal with my job and time off. I started scrambling and finally found a chapel that would marry us on Tuesday with no guests for a summer weekday special price of $99 instead of the $25 we were gonna pay the justice of the peace. Well since the chapel looked pretty and decorated I felt like I should at least have a pretty dress. Right? My first 2 choices were over $100 but at the last minute I found a dress on Amazon that was $37.99 and it was beautiful.


I ordered it so I would get it in time. When I told my babe that I found a dress he asked me what he was wearing. I had never even entertained the thought that he might also want to look pretty on his wedding day. We spent a whole day in downtown L.A. finding him a slim fit suit with a vest and tie for $100 some shoes for about $50 and then fell in love with a separate orange vest and tie that we bought for $21. Whew! Do you see how this is racking up now? Then the rings. Oh the rings. I thought we were probably gonna use the ring he bought me years ago that I never wore because I didn’t like it but we went to the Jewelry Exchange and spent over $1600 on rings.

I can barely believe it, but I love my rings so much. We had to take this financial hit for the team. Alright. I happened upon African Exports blog where she talked about saving money on weddings to use for your future. She said that you shouldn’t skimp on a photographer. I started to think “Why would we spend money on pretty clothes for a small wedding with no guests if we aren’t gonna at least take pictures?”. I started hunting one down and after people running the flim flam on me and adding extra charges I got my headshot photographer, Brett of Bphoto Graphy to do it for a cool $125 and a ride there. I did my own hair (tutorial is below) and probably only spent $20 on the stuff I needed for that. It was looking like I was having a full on wedding at this point- sans the reception and guests- and I started to wonder if I’d look old or wrinkly in my pictures (I’m no spring chicken you know) that I was gonna be paying for. I asked around for makeup artists and found a few that did good work but looked pricey. I wound up using Drini (a celebrity makeup artist that does the makeup for R&B Divas L.A.) I can’t believe I spent $80-, $90 with the tip, for makeup. Add in about $40 for shoes & jewelry, $55 for flowers/boutonniere, $55 for our nails (he got a manicure too) and my brows and I officially felt like I must have done lost my damn mind spending money like we had it like that.
In the end, I was way over my original budget of $25 for the justice of the peace wedding and the $100 deal for 2 wedding bands but I got pretty close to what I had always wanted. We should be out of our debt in 6 months. I have wonderful pictures of all the stuff that we paid for. I got to feel like a Princess on a high poor person’s budget. I have a new husband and beautiful wedding memories with just us and 4 guests (and two kids). Really Priceless!!

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See all the pictures of the big day in Our Wedding Album Slideshow below

Fishnet/Veil Updo Tutorial