Tijuana Chicken Helped Keep Our Wedding Cheap

我参加过的第一个婚礼就是我自己的。Bloomberg News那还是1981年，我们的父母和我们大约花了2,000美元，按现在的价值约合4,800美元。我们用这些钱买了鲜花安排200多位来宾的正式晚餐酒水租用了宴会厅，还请来了主持人。这些年来，我惊讶地看到人们婚礼开销涨到了数万甚至数十万美元。的确，这是个特殊的日子。但任何一天要花上这么多的钱都似乎是太浪费了。现在，随着经济放缓，许多夫妇也得出了和我一样的结论。根据David's Bridal连锁店最近的一项调查，约有四分之一的新人计划将自己的婚礼预算削减一半。有三分之一的新人说，他们计划的婚礼开支不超过1万美元。David's Bridal的首席执行长胡特(Robert Huth)说，新人们总是努力在这一天打造出完美的婚礼，又不想大肆铺张。由于目前的经济状况，这点显得更加突出。其实，人们可以在不大肆铺张的情况下打造出接近完美的婚礼。是的，可能会有一些缺憾，但你仍会获得一个爱意浓浓的仪式，乃至天长地久的婚姻，同时又不至于让自己捉襟见肘。在1981年时，克拉丽莎(Clarissa)和我只约会了一个月左右时间，就决定共结连理。我们商定在加州圣地亚哥附近德斯坎索的天主教堂举行一个小型的婚礼。但我很快意识到，我们对“小型”的含义有着迥然不同的理解。我认为这是指20或30个人。在克拉丽莎跟我反复商量后，最终决定邀请150名亲朋好友以及和我们一起工作的一家小报刊社的同事。这可能会花上一大笔钱。尽管我们的家人会伸出援手，我们还是希望把开支降下来。就在那个时候，克拉丽莎的娘家人开始火速行动起来。她的舅妈卢皮(Lupe)和舅舅丹尼斯(Dennis)在墨西哥的提华纳找了一家宴会筹办公司，奶酪火腿鸡排每人份只要7美元。他们还付了酒钱。一个朋友给她缝制了结婚礼服。另一个朋友提供免费婚礼摄影。对于婚宴的场所，我们花了几百美元租了附近一个社区中心。我们的婚礼没有进行彩排，结果在婚礼上出了不少洋相。当神父让我们拥抱时，我们紧紧地抱住对方。我们该亲吻的时候，却在那重要的一刻笨手笨脚弄砸了，惹得教堂里的宾客哄堂大笑。接下来是晚宴。克拉丽莎曾担心宴会筹办公司无法把食物送过边境。他送过来了，而且对一个晚宴来说，餐点出奇的好。（我应该知道这一点，因为我们之后好一阵子都在吃剩下的鸡排。）我的祖母烤了小山一样的果馅奶酪卷当甜点。克拉丽莎的姨妈卡门(Carmen)烤了结婚蛋糕，蛋糕是分块从墨西哥运来的，然后在美国“重新组装”点缀。晚宴后，我和克拉丽莎开着她的Plymouth Volare前往山里的酒店，我们将在那里度过新婚之夜。Volare真不愧是有史以来最糟糕的车子之一。我们的这部Volare车身电子系统奇差，当我们在盘山公路上行驶的时候，前车灯总是一会儿亮，一会儿灭。这可真不是我们最“明”智的做法。不过我们还是到达了酒店。第二天，我和克拉丽莎现身社区中心进行大扫除，好拿回我们的50美元清洁保证金。大约5分钟之后，即便是我也意识到，为了省下一分一毫，我们这样做太过头了。所以，我们放下扫把，迈向我们的新生活。我的三个孩子都还没有结婚。我当然希望他们能节俭办事。不过，如果他们不够节俭，我或许会果断地做出决定：无论克拉丽莎让我付多少，我都会照付不误。Neal Templin


The first wedding I ever attended was my own.It cost our families and us roughly $2,000 in 1981, or about $4,800 in today's dollars. For that we got flowers, a sit-down dinner for more than 100 guests, liquor, a banquet hall and a disc jockey.For years, I've read with dismay about the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that people spend on weddings. Yes, it's a special day. But to spend so much money on any one day seems wasteful.Now, with the economy slowing, a lot of couples are coming to the same conclusion. About a quarter of brides-to-be plan to cut their wedding budgets in half, according to a recent survey conducted for the David's Bridal chain. One-third of brides said they plan to spend $10,000 or less on their weddings.'Brides always strive to create the perfect wedding day without spending a fortune,' said Robert Huth, the chief executive of David's Bridal. 'It is simply more pronounced due to the state of the economy.'Well, here's for creating a less-than-perfect wedding without spending a fortune. Yes, there will be some bobbles. But you can still have an endearing ceremony -- and maybe even an enduring marriage -- without putting yourselves in hock.Clarissa and I had only dated for a month or so in 1981 when we decided to tie the knot. We agreed on a small wedding in a Catholic church in Descanso, Calif., outside San Diego. I soon learned we had very different ideas what 'small' meant.I thought it meant it 20 or 30 people. After Clarissa and I duked it out, it ended up meaning inviting 150 family members, friends and coworkers from the small newspaper where we both worked. That could have cost serious money. Though our families were helping out, we wanted to keep the costs down.That's when Clarissa's family sprang into action. Her Aunt Lupe and Uncle Dennis found a caterer in Tijuana, Mexico, who would serve chicken cordon bleu for $7 a person. They also paid for the liquor. One friend sewed her wedding dress. Another photographed the wedding free of charge.For the actual dinner, we were able to rent a community center nearby for a couple of hundred dollars.We didn't have a rehearsal for the wedding. It showed. When the priest told us to embrace, we hugged each other. We were supposed to kiss, and the entire church burst into laughter as we muffed our big moment.Then came the dinner. Clarissa worried that the caterer wouldn't make it across the border with the food. He did, and the meal was surprisingly good for a banquet. (I should know because we were eating leftover chicken cordon bleu for some time afterward.) My grandmother baked up mountains of strudel for dessert. And Clarissa's Aunt Carmen made the wedding cake, which was transported in pieces from Mexico, then reassembled and decorated in the U.S.After dinner, Clarissa and I headed off in her Plymouth Volare to the hotel in the mountains where we were spending the night. The Volare has a deserved reputation as one of the worst cars of all time. This one had a dreadful electrical system, and our headlights kept going out as we drove through winding mountain roads. Not the brightest move on our part, literally. But we got there.The next day, Clarissa and I showed up at the community center to sweep up and reclaim our $50 cleaning deposit. After about five minutes, even I realized this was just trying too hard to save a buck. So we put down our brooms and headed off toward our new life.None of my three children have married yet. I sure hope they do it on the cheap. But if they don't, I'll probably do the manly thing: pay whatever Clarissa says I have to pay.Neal Templin