My compliments to you, De, for not bludgeoning her, and for remaining calm enough to know you might get caught.

I managed to put my wedding together for $1,000 – INCLUDING the bride’s AND the groom’s outfits, which included, inter alia, twenty yards of white velvet and ten yards of white brocade, gold embroidery and lace, silver braid and pearls, re-embroidered Alencon lace and a couple of ostriches’ worth of feathers.

You could always tell her that you opted for low-budget, De, in preference to her choice, which was low class.

Grrr. And I have plenty of leftover indignant, if you should happen to need some.

I’ll admit the show is much better when TiVO’ed and blatantly fast-forwarded through.

De: It’s been a while and inflation would probably make my wedding cost roughly your budget today. If there’s one thing my wedding wasn’t, that would be ‘ragtag.’ It was simple, but pretty and fun for everyone who came. I’m still getting compliments on that wedding. My guess is that yours will turn out the same, since taste does not have a specific price tag.

Melissa B.: How cool! I love the idea of the water balloon fight. One guest at my wedding to Mr. Twistie pounced on me at the reception with a can of Silly String. I got it from him and attacked him back. We still laugh about that one. And yes, a couple who has been through that kind of testing cannot fail to move others with their committment. All the golden candlesticks in the world can’t buy that.

La Petite Acadienne: It’s a mighty amusing image in my head, I can tell you that.

make less sense than Ozzie Osborne attempting to read James Joyce aloud to a roomful of otters on speed,

I would pay so much money to see that….

A good friend of mine from college had an absolutely wonderful wedding for $7,000. Her parents are quite affluent and would have given her anything she wanted, but she was in med school and didn’t want to spend a pile of money on her wedding in addition to that. Her wedding gown was a white mother of the bride dress that she got for $250; they served a nice lunch buffet on the lawn of the church and danced to a playlist they put together on their iPod. The whole thing ended with a water balloon fight!

The best part? At age 26 she was already a cancer survivor; her devoted college boyfriend had been there through her surgery and radiation treatment. Trust me, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when they said their vows. Improve on THAT, David Tutera!

A “good for you/we did that too/damn straight/allow me to recommend said vendor”….which I appreciate or

“Going cheap huh?/Not much money?/Why so little?”….which I DO NOT appreciate.

There is nothing wrong with me because I don’t have $30K to spend on a wedding, and there is nothing wrong with me for not wanting to go out and borrow said $30k to do it.

And my wedding WILL be nice, and not ‘ragtag’ as one girl put it.

Seriously? You think I’d hate the flowers I picked out? You think I wouldn’t want to wear the dress I already picked out?

At least What Not to Wear participants do their own shopping.

Of course, my mom and I could plan a wedding for well under $5,000. We are artistic and creative people so it would be tres chic and quite tasteful, too (we’re also a humble people; can you tell? ;D).