I stopped reading after "parents are paying for".

Who cares?!

Ah man, cake tasting was great for us. Overall, I think the key to having a fun (maybe not inexpensive, but maybe) wedding is to get help from your friends and go off the beaten path. The parts of our wedding that we did that way (we were Portabello's first wedding!) were awesome. The other parts were good, but I'm glad we didn't get lost in chair covers and rented beads (and it turns out buying is less money than renting if you go to a bulk art supply site and have friends and family who are willing to take some of your junk when you're done with it).

[This public service announcement was brought to you by the friendly folks at the following organizations: The Neo-Spinsters of America, The 'Marriage - What Is It Good For?' Association, The Bachelors-For-Perpetuity Campaign, and The Society for the Abolishment of All Things Matrimonial. Please enjoy the rest of your day. And remember -- singlehood and chastity are not crimes, no matter how much your mother nags to the contrary. Thank you for reading.]

Cake tasting was my favorite part of wedding planning -- I've been married for 23 years this summer and my husband still brings up how much fun that was at least once a year. To be honest, I don't think your problem is actually wedding planning or the wedding industry...I think maybe you just might suck at picking vendors to test drive. Which is OK because it's not a major life skill (plus it gave you some fodder for this article). But you might want to keep that in mind and outsource the vendor research should you ever be put in charge of planning any other parties.

I am quite disappointed not to be invited to this mid-range cake and naked chairs soiree.

I got married last summer and had four months to plan it. Insisted on making my own cake, which turned out great--if there are any home baker brides or grooms to be who'd like to give it a try, The Cake Bible is an excellent resource. I also recommend The Party Place for rentals. They didn't even MENTION crap like chair covers, and they were totally reliable.

I can also highly recommend Catering at Its Best--not only were they friendly and reasonably priced, and did a walkthrough with us and helped us choose what rentals we wanted (with no BS), but the food was awesome and I did not have to manage them or do anything during the wedding--they handled it all. And they made us a gift basket of goodies and wine to have AFTER the ceremony, when we were exhausted and hungry. :)

Suggestion #1: order a gay cake in Gresham. You end up with a free cake.
Suggestion #2: contest time! One lucky Blogtown winner gets invited to Alex's wedding.

Married 17 years. We eloped.
All this crap you are writing about strikes me as obscene and unromantic.
At least you are not making people trek to Hawaii though. That is the complete worst: making people spend their vacation time to bask in the glory of your love.

I'm getting married in September. When I got engaged, we printed out a list of things that people usually do for weddings, and crossed off everything that sounded tacky. There wasn't much left to fuss with afterwards. I avoided Pinterest like the plague, bought a dress on consignment, and my fiancee managed to find Ninja Turtles-themed cake toppers at a swap meet for a whopping $1 each.

I don't care about the rest of 'em, I just want to have a good time with my nearest and dearest, and I'm pretty sure we can do that without going broke.

I love that $1 Ninja Turtles-themed cake toppers survived your process of weeding out all things tacky.

I work for a linen company in Wilsonville called LinenTablecloth.com. We sell all the table linens - including chair covers - for way cheaper than renting. We're constantly having sales as well, which makes it even better. You should check out the site at www.linentablecloth.com

Oh, and did I mention that you could just sell them when you're done using them on ebay or craigslist & get at least half of your money back? You can.

Good luck & congratulations on your wedding!