Grog, I feel your pain.

My DH and I decided to get married after we had been a couple and living togaether for 9 years. It was important to his parents that we get married - they are quite traditional and also older and were worried that they wouldn't make it to see the BIG day.

DH and I didn't want it to be this big deal, we didn't want presents, we didn't want the expense and we certainly didn't want the pressure from any family memebers. In 2000 we got a call from his sister to say that as she had hosted their father's 75th birthday party, it was up to us to host the 80th. This meant getting his parents to agree to come to our city of residence at the time (Edmonton, AB) from California because we could not travel at that time of the year. Summary: a week later we had his immediate family, including his 2 children from a previous marriage lined up to come to Edmonton. My Mom, dad and one sister came (for my father in-law's birthday party), they lived in the area so it was easy to get them to come.

So the next morning while we were walking our dog, DH turns to me and says "Everyone will be here, let's have a surprise wedding." So that's what we did. I had a dress made that was a "Ball gown" and done in light gold satin in stead of white, much cheaper than a wedding dress, we had a friend that lives in Jasper AB make our wedding bands for us and they were spectacular (she's a great artisan and I can give you her contact information if you like, she's also relatively cheap), our triathlon training buddy, who is also a lawyer married us, we each had one person stand up for us, we leased out a favorite restaurant for the night and voila, we had a fabulous wedding with everything that we wanted and no arguements with family.

The meal was expensive as it was gourmet but we only had about 25 guests so it wasn't a big deal. We had another friend play the cello for the ceremony (a celtic hand fasting ceremony where we wrote our own vows and kept to 10 min) and for the cocktail hour afterward. Then we had our own music, Billy Holiday, Etta James, that sort of thing. And as for cake, we had a dessert buffet that went over really well. We were also able to invite more friends for the dessert part at only 7 dollars a head. We asked our friends that were "in the know" to bring cameras and take photos which worked out great. Most brought point and shoots but we had one friend who brought an SLR and did black and Whites - no posing just candids. The next day this same friend did our official outside wedding shots (we had to get dressed up again). We did not have a dance, we just all hung out in the restaurant and visited. It was fantastic. I would not have changed a thing.

I did not have a engagement ring for the reasons other people have listed. Also, did you know that the "tradition" of the engagement diamond was a marketing ploy started by the Debeers diamond company sometime in the 40's in an effort to increase diamond sales. Boy did it work!!

Other non-trad, budget conscious ideas from friends:

- an engagement puppy
- wedding favors of home made cookies packaged nicely in chinese take-out boxes
- wedding dress ordered off the internet from China for 3 dollars (my friend ordered 5 and chose one, gave the other 4 away or to Good Will)
- a pyramid of creme puffs for a wedding cake made by an aunt
- single gerber daisies in small vases bought from a dollar store for table flowers

Good luck with your wedding planning. Stick to your guns and as much as people may grumble about your non-traditional decisions, they'll all have fun anyway and they'll talk about it for years - ours still does.