A few weeks ago I was pedaling to work listening to NPR’s Most E-mailed Stories Podcast and I heard this story about weddings.  And I developed a complex.  Obviously I’ve already eloped but we were definitely having a cash bar at the reception.  Was that gauche?  Were people going to resent it or think we were cheap?

But here’s the thing: we ARE cheap.  Well, I mean, we’re not (hello, obscenely priced mascara or cycling jerseys), but I’m not one of those daughters who expects my parents to get a second mortgage to pay for my wedding (reception).  We had a small budget, a gift from my parents, and we stayed within it.

We threw an intimate wedding reception for about 100 people.  There weren’t 100 people there, but I know my friends and family and I knew they were going to eat for 100. We had lovely hors d’ouevres (ie: red pepper walnut puree on endive tips, mini black bean burgers with espresso BBQ sauce, tumeric shrimp with coconut chutney, to name a few), a prosecco toast, and a homemade chocolate chai cake served with cardamom gelato.

The caterer recommended a florist- the most avant garde florist in Houston, he said, and I went to his store expecting to pick out some tiny bud vases or something similar.  And so I picked out cactus.  He had tiny cactus plants in short square vases potted with tiny white rocks.  It was the same price as a rose bloom floating in a vase with black pebbles, and more symbolic, I thought.  My wedding and honeymoon were in West Texas and I think cactus will always remind me of that. So we had those on every other table.

I’d been researching wedding favors online and found some cool ones but they were a tad more than I wanted to pay. So I bought mini Belgian chocolate bars (lavender dark chocolate, white peppercorn cardamom dark chocolate, green tea milk chocolate, and Ghana milk chocolate for the fraidy cats) at Whole Foods and tied a little note to them with our wedding date and it said “thanks for celebrating with us.”  I thought it was a prefect wedding favor- cheap and snobby and well-designed all at the same time.  If something else embodies us more than those things, I don’t know what it is.

And the reception was great.  For the record- I ate at my own wedding reception.  I swore I’d never be a bride that said, “Oh, I am STARVING,” after my reception.  And I wasn’t!

My favorite part was the toast.  My friends Dan and Phoebe had a Quaker wedding where everyone had the chance to say things about the bride and groom in front of everyone.  It was awesome.  Very moving and just . . . beautiful.  I wanted that, but without the religious strings.  So we had an open toast at our reception.  The glasses of prosecco were passed out and Dave and I said thanks to everyone and I left it open for people to speak.  No one did, so we toasted and I was afraid my dream of the open toast was out the window.  Then someone spoke up.  And someone else.  People were all genuinely happy for us, and said so in beautiful ways.  My great aunt said that we both had a glow about us, my mom happy-tearily welcomed Dave to our family, Dave’s mom did the same for me, and people spoke for a while.

My favorite was from Camille, who said something along the lines of, “Since high school, Jen has always had impeccable taste.”  [She said some more things in the middle here, about my choices of fonts and colors, but I'll butcher it if I attempt to repeat them.] “And Dave is just another example of her impeccable taste.”  Then she quietly said that he was definitely the opposite of Comic Sans, but not everyone heard her.

It was a great simple reception.  People came up to us and told us how nice it was.  I’ll be honest- this suprised me!  I mean, I had what I wanted- a small reception with delicious food (and a beer tap with only local beers and no Bud Light!  Take THAT, rest of Texas with your our-tap-only-has-Michelob-and-Bud!!!), but I didn’t expect it to be anyone else’s cup of tea.  So I’m glad they had fun.  Cash bar and all.