Dear Miss Soon-to-be-married,

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Letters to Anonymous

6 min readSep 1, 2014

This is for you, Bride-to-be for whom I am a bridesmaid. Or for any lady with a shiny diamond on the ring finger of her left hand.

About 0.2% of what you will spend on your wedding is actually necessary. Point two percent.

The typical cost of an American wedding is between $15,000 to $30,000, bringing us to an average of $28,427. That’s about $2,000 on a professional planner, $1,200 on a gown, $2,400 on a photographer, $350 for invitations, nearly $600 for a cake, $63 per head for food…etcetera and so forth. You get the point. (Literally. You and your mister are the ones with all the receipts and bills to pay, unless you have very graciously parents and loved ones.)

Still, you’ve done good. You’re making your own invitations. Your dress was a steal (a trivial $450). You were conservative with your venue selection ($1,500, am I right?). Your photographer is really — in the grand scheme of things — affordable. Even the mint colored dresses we bridesmaids had to buy were only $25 (on sale). You have your “cord of three strands” kit and your dress and your gold bands and his tux…but you don’t have anywhere to live together after the vows are said. Or savings for “after.” Or a plan for “after.”

You were fantasizing about your wedding even before your fiancé got down on one knee. Since then, your energy and the contents of your bank account have been consumed with your impending nuptials.

But this is what it actually takes to become (legally) married:

1. A marriage licenses (which costs about $50) from a county clerks office.

2. Officiation by an official officiator, qualified by the county.

3. At least two witnesses.

4. Filing of the marriage certificate (carried out by your officiator).

(Some people might add “consummation on the wedding night” but given this day and age and all its quirks that’s not really what it once was.)

If you want to change your surname, that’s about another $20 to $50. If you want to be married “in the eyes of God” that’s a different matter entirely and I’m not sure about the price-tag.

There you have it: you could be married for $100 dollars, plus the cost of fuel and a postage stamp.

As for all the traditions and wedding cliches you’ve been ogling over…

The bouquet comes from the time of the Plague, when people held pungent herbs to their noses to aid their chances of survival.

The convention of a white wedding dress was started by Queen Victoria. In Celtic culture, red was the customary choice, whereas early Christians preferred blue (it had something to do with the Virgin Mary). Up until the 19th century — or soon after Victoria decided to shake things up—women’s wedding gowns became/were their “Sunday best” and therefore fabric in shades of grey (no pun intended; this is historical fact) was not uncommon.

Wedding rings, or something like them, date back to prehistory. Early man used strips of plants, tied around various appendages, to mark their beloveds. Egyptian mummies were found with wire metal rings on their fingers. Also, the use of the left hand’s third finger is because one of the veins — the vena amoris—apparently runs directly to the heart. (Who decided this, I don’t know.)

You could say wedding cakes go back to Ancient Roman days…only those cakes were more like bread and made with wheat or barley. And they were broken over the bride’s head after the ceremony. Then the new couple ate a few crumbs (which I think totally beats smudging buttercream on each other’s faces). Another source says the cake was thrown at the bride. (Don’t worry, it was just to increase her fertility…) In England during the Middle Ages, cakes were made of very small, spiced buns stacked as high as they could go. The taller it was, the better things would be for the young couple.

The wedding party comes from the very old tradition of kidnapping the bride. Close friends of the groom would assist him in stealing the bride away from her family (in truth or in jest, I’m not sure). The tradition of bridesmaids, however, is less clear. Some think bridesmaids were stand-ins for the bride — so evil spirits wouldn’t do her any harm—or they functioned as witnesses, since in the early days of Roman ten witnesses were required.

The practice of the father “giving away the bride” goes back to when women were considered property.

And don’t get me started on the diamond ring.

I don’t say this to knock the thing that is marriage. I say this to re-evaluate the brouhaha we have made “getting married” out to be.

Matrimony was originally a rather simple affair. It was about community. It was about the joining of two people and two families. The papers were drawn up (without the bride’s involvement, I might add), the bride wore her best clothes, the vows might be as simple as “Yes, I do.” In the 15th century, couples and their wedding parties would do the deed by going to Mass together, get married outside the church, and then go back to the bride’s house for a feast.

Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. An average 6,646 divorces take place everyday. Forty-one percent of first marriages end in divorce…and the odds get worse the more nuptials you participate in.

Sorry. Not to put a damper on things but the truth had to be said.

I’ve never done it myself, but I’m told nothing about marriage is easy. And the stats seem to agree. So…one question: Is the first day you’ll be married really about you and him and the collection of people you’ve decided get to hold you to your promises? Or is it about shiny things and a poofy dress and fancy foods and music and photographs?

The day you are fantasizing about is one day. If you both live to a respectable age of eighty (I’m being conservative in my estimate), you have over 20,000 days together. And that’s if you get married at the age of twenty-five.

I understand the wedding is about “making memories.” All very well good. You can make memories on a shoe string just as well as you can make them with half a year’s income.