If you’re going to throw a wedding, I highly recommend already being legally married beforehand. It takes half the paperwork-related stress right off the table, and you know that even if your bride runs away at the altar, she can’t get very far because you already live together and you were her ride to the venue. 

My wife (probably my favorite phrase to throw out — I use it like students who studied abroad say “when I lived in Europe”) Bo and I got legally hitched back in November, and as romantic as getting wed beneath the city clerk’s “marriage/dog/hunting licenses” sign was, we’d always planned on a proper religious (Episcopal) ceremony and a party with our family and friends.

So this past weekend, we did exactly that: threw the wedding/baby shower of our dreams. (It was mostly just a regular wedding, but we asked for baby stuff because it turns out they need a lot of things and he’ll be here in less than two months.) 

Despite the fact that we are both millennials, and millennials love nothing more than destroying various industries, I swear we didn’t set out to topple the wedding industrial complex on purpose (or ruin traditional marriage for the heterosexuals). We’re just not particularly extroverted, from small families and have a budget bomb (I mean, a baby) on the way. So we had a low-cost wedding. 

We probably spent about $450 on food, drinks and compostable tableware, although I fully admit we ended up overspending on that (we ate leftovers for days and I might just have accidentally-on-purpose bought a few too many cases of my favorite seltzer because I knew they’d come home with me).

The menu: summer Labor Day barbecue — hamburgers and hot dogs, of course, along with grilled zucchini, corn, garden salad and pasta salad (the vegetables for which came from our weekly CSA share).

We paid $100 for four dozen cupcakes (with custom color frosting and edible glitter hearts) from a bakery in Brunswick. It cost $135 for a bucket of DIY flowers from a farm in Monroe, which were expertly DIY-ed by my Aunt Barb into several vases I got from Goodwill and the dollar store ($15). 

It was $470 for the rental, which included seamless delivery and pickup, of one enormous two-tank propane grill and 20 white folding chairs. I added the 20 chairs onto the order 36 hours prior to the event when I realized, in a panic, my mom’s barn didn’t have enough. (I’m not joking when I say the chair providers saved not only my wedding, but also my marriage because guess who was supposed to have the chair situation settled more than 36 hours in advance).

Our bridal dresses were about $200 combined. My wife wore a gorgeous thrifted vintage Calvin Klein dress and I found mine in an Instagram ad. I’m not super proud of this but it is very millennial of me, and by God that algorithm knew what I wanted, which was to look like a somewhat rotund fairy princess (there was pink, there was tulle, there was floral embroidery).

The biggest single item was also the smallest: our wedding rings, which were about $1,500 total, made by a jeweler who works only with recycled or reclaimed gold.

All of their designs are simple and elegant; several of their rings are specifically meant to be “sensory-friendly,” which is great for me because I cannot stand being able to feel jewelry touching my skin. These rings feel great, though, and not just because of what they represent (although of course there are warm fuzzies there, too). I keep getting a little distracted by the glint of gold on my left hand now.

I don’t often spend big bucks, but when I do, I try to put them toward small or local businesses. Not only am I usually getting a superior product and am contributing to the local economy, but there’s a certain amount of satisfaction knowing where my hard-earned money goes.

When I went to pick up the flowers at the farm, I saw a rescue pit bull watching me from a window. I like knowing some of my wedding florals paid for his kibbles.

The total? $2,870. (And again, about half of that is the rings). I haven’t been able to find solid numbers on what an “average” Maine wedding costs, but I’m pretty sure ours was on the lower side. 

We were blessed enough to score the venue — my family friend Celia’s house by a lake, which years ago hosted her own daughter’s wedding — for free.

Most of the setup was done by my family members who had arrived early, which was very nice of them because I’m not used to being unable to pick up move around heavy objects. The dress code was come-as-you-are summer casual, and we had everything from Hawaiian shirts to kilts. (That was obviously my brother.) 

The weather and the ceremony were perfect. I think what I’ll remember most is the laughter when the priest read the part about “when it is God’s will, the gift of children.” (I don’t know exactly God’s will on that front but I think we can be pretty sure it’s going to be toward the end of October.)

Or maybe the part where, as we stood facing each other and holding hands, a teeny tiny spider dropped down on a web between us and we just sort of had to fervently, silently pray that it wouldn’t crawl onto us. Or maybe the part where people went paddleboarding afterward and we all threw leftover corncobs at my uncle. 

My mom told me that the day I was born, she held me in her arms and imagined my wedding day. I’m not sure if you’d asked her 32 years ago about it she’d have described this particular day at the lake, but to be fair, imagining something so silly and wonderful and perfect is pretty difficult to do.

But maybe she could have guessed the part where after the ceremony was done and the food packed away and the guests gone, my wife and I got to go home, let the dogs out, change into pajamas and collapse on the couch to watch “Star Trek.” That’s the best part of all, and I get to do it every night forever now.