Anyone who tells you that planning a wedding is kind of stressful and can overwhelm even the most grounded couple is absolutely right. I think it's a LOT of fun, and we are having a ball thinking about the ceremony and seeing our friends and family that day, and how it will feel to transition to "married"... but last night it got to me. I cried a little because I felt like there was so much to do! I let "the details" get in the way of the fun. Crap!

Luckily, it went away. And I am back to being excited, not overwhelmed. We have some cool things planned already, and we spent the weekend visiting possible wedding sites and discussing ideas.

I am sorely disappointed in the wedding venues here in the metropolitan Phoenix area. First of all, I guess I should say that we are not rich and as such, we have set a budget. This budget leaves but a precious few wedding sites, as the ones that could pass as "nice" or "picturesque" cost about $2,000 an hour and you need to give up a kidney to the overlords before ye shall pass and enter the premises. So, we visited the one site that IS very nice, and is unique and I feel will be the place we book and have a kick-ass wedding and reception, but as a safeguard and to make sure we were SURE about the place, we wanted to check out the others in our price range. Yesterday we drove to three of them.

These three places were "reception halls" or "wedding houses." We found all three in some of those repititious and already-hideous-and-tiresome wedding magazines. All three places were closed yesterday, so we did the old Peek Over the Fence trick on two of them, and Peer In the Window trick on the last one. Which was in a strip mall. Sorry to anyone who did get married in a strip mall, but I can think of few things sadder than the Strip Mall Bargain Wedding.

Here's the common element of these three places: TACKY. Oh my sweet and gentle Jesus... why does everything "wedding" automatically include white lattice arches, and fake flowers and ivy garlands purchased at Michael's in 1994; why the plaster/resin statues of cherubs and Grecian-styled women? And I have to know this one: Why the Astroturf altar by the pool? Why must a wedding look like a Mob-connected family threw up all their old crap from the 80s and 90s all over the Arizona prefab landscape? Oh, man. I kept thinking about the potential wedding parties that must rent these places out, and I GUARANTEE those weddings have the following:

* Satin, poufy-sleeved bridesmaids gowns (colors in either pink, blue or seafoam green). There must also be a minimum of 5 bridesmaids, and at least one must be pregnant.
* A groom who is wearing a gold chain under that rented tux (the cheapest one in the store after Uncle Marty gave him the discount cuz of the groomsmen renting all them other tuxes and shit)
* A screaming, illegitimate baby somewhere in the crowd (or, maybe, in the wedding party itself)
* A five-tiered white wedding cake with real roses on the sides, and a shrill, ethnically-accented mother of the bride yelling over and over something like: "Now, SAVE that top tier, honey! Save it! You put it in your freezer and on your anniversary, you take it out and eat it together! No, be careful! Watch what you're doing, that cake cost a FORTUNE!"
* A fight in the parking lot before the night is over.
* Cheap booze. A Boone's Farm toast!
* Grandpa gets fresh with the hired help.
* Bride finishes the night in tears, no matter what. Her new husband will roll his eyes and act put-upon, and they both drive away and in the rented white limo terrified of the SPECTACLE that was HAVING A WEDDING is now over and they are expected to be "married" now. For reals. Whoa!

So yes, the bottom line is, we are not going to be contacting the managers or event coordinators of these fine wedding ceremony and reception sites. If we lived somewhere else we would probably get married in a park, on the beach, or at a quiet little bed and breakfast somewhere. But we don't, we live in Phoenix, and everything in Phoenix is either expensive as hell or crappy as hell. There's very little middle ground. And the stuff in the middle ground more than likely has you standing on dirt to get married, your veil stuck on a nearby cactus and hearing that tinny Mexican music playing somewhere in the background, since every park here on every weekend is playing host to some loud Mexican parties in every single ramada in the whole park and they always park a car close to the party and open all the doors and windows of said car and play that music at top volume. So yes, if this is your idea of an awesome wedding on a budget, I highly recommend Phoenix!

Seriously though, the place I am 99% sure we are going to rent out is quiet, secluded, totally different, it's green and near the water, so I am VERY happy indeed, and feel pretty fortunate we found it. I am not going to say where it is out of fear that some other would-be bride will read this and snatch it away before we can hand over our deposit this week. So it's staying secret for now. I do NOT want to end up at the Strip Mall.