Hello, my name is Vesta Irene and welcome to my Bridal Blog, where I’ll write about anything and everything that has to do with getting married, from big weddings to eloping to Reno and getting married in one of our wedding chapels.
I didn’t have a big wedding. I guess because it was 1965 and I was six months pregnant when Ken and I showed up at a St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in Bellflower, California with my sister and Ken’s brother for witnesses. In fairness to those of you who might be thinking we only got married because we were expecting soon, we were already married, we’d eloped to Tijuana, the priest was just making it legal in America.
You see, we didn’t have to do the American wedding bit, but we decided it might be best, because we didn’t know for certain just how legal our Mexican wedding was, considering we were both eighteen and that we had to pay a drunk on the street five dollars to be our witness.
Yes, our first wedding was south of the border with just a Mexican justice of the peace, a rummy drunk and us in attendance, just about as small a wedding as it’s possible to have. Total cost, ten bucks for gas to and from Mexico, ten bucks for the JP and license and five for the witness. Twenty-five dollars, not much and we’re closing in on almost a half century of happiness out of it. A pretty good deal, I’d say.
I mention this, because it’s not the size of the wedding that matters. A hundred thousand dollar wedding won’t buy you what we have, that takes more than money. However, that being said, there is nothing better on God’s green earth, nothing more fun, nothing more satisfying, nothing more enjoyable than a fine wedding.
If you’re in love and can afford the wedding of your dreams, then go for it. If you’re in love and can’t, don’t save up for it, go for it, too. Because, in the end, no matter how much you want that dream wedding, living the dream is what it’s really all about.
I am living the dream. We had no money when we got married, so I didn’t get a real wedding, but had I known then what I know now, I could’ve had a small, intimate wedding for not too much money that I would have remembered. I suppose that’s why I’ve made a hobby out of collecting wedding books. Also, I should tell you that I am planning on a wedding, because when we hit that half century mark, Ken and I are going to have that wedding we never had.
Vesta Irene
Wedding Photographer, Reno, Nevada