The Plaid Pladd

I got married!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the secret to having the best wedding ever (since I am clears an expert now): Don’t even bother being confined by a wedding checklist developed by an industry designed to trick you into needlessly parting with your money! You should really just think about what you want, what you would want if you had never had the traditional wedding crammed down your throat since you were six, and then just do whatever that is! I’m not against spending money, just against spending it on things you don’t care about. Like anything that isn’t cupcakes. Here are some examples:

The Ceremony
Ceremonies are boring, so my first idea was not having one at all! Skip straight to the party!! That idea made my mom sad, though, and Steven also wanted at least a little ceremony, so we decided to plan the most low key, fun, personal one possible. And we decided to only invite our immediate families, because they’re the ones that care the most anyway, right? Plus, having such a small, small ceremony gave us a lot more freedom when deciding location, timing, and even how the ceremony would go.

The next most important decision was who should marry us? Of course the answer is Rachel Kinney!!!!!!

Exhibit A: Rachel Kinney

She did such a great job! She’s in divinity school right now, so it was not that weird of a request, plus she was the one who set us up on our first date so it was pretty much perfect! We talked about how it should go beforehand; I think my exact instructions to her were “You say something, and then I’ll say something, and then Steven will say something, rings, MARRIED!” And that’s pretty much how it went. It was so awesome to have such a personalized ceremony, which basically just meant telling funny stories about each other! Instead of the usual “lawfully wedded wife” business, we got “Do you Steven take Patricia as your wife, best friend, and perpetual partner in crime?”

Spoiler Alert: he said yes

As you can see, the park we had it at was really pretty (and renting the nearby shelter was only $25 for the day, proving that venue costs don’t have to totally suck), and since the ceremony–even with giving every single person present a chance to say something–was mega short, there was lots of time to play on the equipment!!

Rachel is a spider monkey!!!

Wheeeeee!!!!! Who cares if my dress gets dirty? It was $60!!!

Also, the park has a tank.

A wedding tank

The Dress

As a bride, I know I am supposed to be absolutely obsessed with my clothes/hair/shoes/whatever. But the only thing I am really all about are the shoes:

Because, come on, I basically win at life

The dress is a prom dress I bought online on one of those sites where you can choose any color. I plan to wear it to other fancy occasions in the future (except other people’s weddings) because it is awesome! I totally did my hair myself (which should tell you how easy it was). It’s just three fishtail braids braided together on each side.

The girl I tutor told me it looked "too little girl" but I have too much hair for one big braid, so whatever

Also, wasn’t sure if my ring would arrive on time, so I bought a back up which was 3% of the price of the real one, but 300% more awesome:

MY LOVE IS A THUNDER LIZARD

Unfortunately, the real one did arrive on time:

Fist bump of marriedness!

The Party

WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! This whole wedding was planned so that there could be costumes! My favorite thing! And Steven’s favorite thing too! It totally fits if you remember the story of our first date. So I made this dress out of paperbags!!!!!

The purple duct tape is pretty AND structurally important!

I’m thinking about writing a whole blog post about how I made the dress (which will involve making another since I was too hurried to take pictures), but basically the skirt and bodice are separate parts, the former secured with a drawstring and the latter with stick on velcro. I made a purple circle skirt to wear underneath, just in case, and because it was kind of open at the back. Throughout the night, it kind of fell apart, especially since my dancing mainly consists of jumping up and down repeatedly.

Steven was the Time Traveler!!

I tried to convince him to get a big Flavor Flav clock, but he said no

I think I will write a whole separate blog post about all the great Wed-O-Ween fashions! As you can probably tell from these pictures, the party was at my parents’ house, which put another venue cost at $0! And got my dad to finally trim our front yard trees! So everyone wins! We also had awesome dancing:

Former President Theodore Roosevelt can really bust a move

Not the first or last time Steven and I will share a romantic dance to Skullcrusher Mountain in a living room:

You can tell it's later in the evening by the way my costume is kind of falling apart

X-treme Bobbing for apples:

Almost decided to just throw them in the pool but decided that was too much of a challenge. Even for Bat Girl

A tower of cupcakes!

Deliciousness!

And creepy/awesome homemade wizard party favors:

Each contains a few drops of my sweat and one evil child's soul

Unfortunately, some partied too hardy:

Oh, Grandma, we can't take you ANYWHERE

More on this later!