Seconded that food and drink is where the money goes. The total budget for our wedding was high - $36K, including everything from the corsages to the goodie bags full of dollar store toys for the kids' tables - and the lion's share of it (like, 70%) was on food and drink for our guests. We DIY-ed a ton of stuff (the…

Oh my God, let's be friends. This is so cathartic, and bizarre - I get shit all the time for my 200 person wedding, but as middle-class WASP, it's for the complete opposite reason. Everyone assumes that I invited every person I'd ever shaken hands with as a play for gifts or cash. Fact is, the hubs and I love and…

The "loved every moment" part is key. How much would it suck to spend all that money and then be like "meh." And I've definitely heard of this happening too. Honestly, I've been to fancy but shitty weddings, and cheap but amazing weddings - clearly the joy is the defining factor.

Love that each one comes with a liquor pairing. Priorities!

For real. We had a medium-fancy white-person wedding at an upscale local hotel on a long weekend. The hubs and I were luxuriating in our suite's fancy tub the next morning when he was like, "Sooo... there's an elephant coming up the walkway." Apparently a multiple day Indian wedding was having some events at the same…

I want to hear about everyone's fancy hors d'oeuvres, stat. Real talk, the other day I had dinner with an old friend and, at the end of a story about her nightmare weekend at her cousin's *dry* country wedding (WTH?), she told me that she still remembered my wedding for the free flowing bar and how awesome the tuna…

Meh. Just one day, yes, but colossal waste of money? Not so sure on that one. We had an expensive (by my standards) and fancy-ish wedding, and although that day is now 7 years in the rearview, I think it was money mostly well spent. I think about things like: the fact that it was the last really big party that either…

Okay, please stop being embarrassed. Or alternatively, take comfort in the fact that I outspent you,tidily, in fucking Canada. I, like you, am still married, still happy, and still look back on my wedding as an amazing day that I'm so happy to have shared with the people I love (and sooooo much delicious food and nice…

That would certainly make me feel better, for what it's worth! We did it up big, not necessarily because that was what we had dreamed about, but because it made our (enormous) families happy and it made us happy to celebrate with them in style. When people look at our wedding pictures, or ask how much we spent (when…

Thanks. My only regret (besides disappointing Grandma for what would not prove to be the last time) was that there were no usable pictures for our wedding album. Due to the combined natures of the lift and the dresses, they were all on the spectrum between "NSFW" and "Hella NSFW."

I want to see these sprocket center pieces, like, now.

I played varsity rugby in University, when I met my husband. It was a huge, if not all-consuming, part of my life - 6am practices 5 days/week, games 2 days/week, and mandatory gym and pool sessions on off-days. My now-husband had previously favoured quite delicately built women who were, as I understand it,…

Yeah, I gotta say, even with the most freewheeling and all-encompassing rationalization possible... no. Just no. I feel like someone much smarter than me should study how and why we respond to this kind of shit (i.e. stunting in the name of charity).

And many people who aren't on the spectrum, tbh. Maybe the idea is to attempt to replicate the social unease that many folks on the spectrum encounter in much more benign situations? Or maybe it's just meant to be meta commentary on the kind of stunt someone with reduced ability to read and interpret social cues might…

Right? I mean, it's not an accomplishment, it just happens to be warm where you are. I shouldn't complain though - it sounds like it's much worse where you are than where I am (good ol' snowy as fuck Ottawa) even if I did have to shovel the goddamn driveway yet again this morning.

The worst part is all my relatives from the west coast commenting "what's all that white stuff" on every. single. photo. I post. We get it, Victoria. It's warm where you are. I'll just be here shoveling.

Precisely - ascribing intent to any physical, biological or evolutionary process, particularly when that intent just happens to support your argument, is 1-way ticket to self-serving rhetoric town.

Beautifully articulated. I had a prof (in evolutionary bio, go figure) whose oft-used catchphrase was that "science doesn't have a side."

I think it's a little unfair to consider those situations (which I too have seen way too commonly in my circle of friends) as being characteristic of hetero poly relationships. More characteristic of douchebag manipulators, no?

Everyone who goes to the altar should be that happy and sure. Good for all of you.