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For some reason that escapes me, weddings are hideously expensive. No, wait, let me re-phrase that. For some reason that escapes me, people these days love to revel in hideously expensive weddings. And those who can’t afford giant weddings are glued to unreality TV to see rich people throw tantrums over their obscenely opulent weddings.
I’ve had two weddings myself, and been a member of several more, and attended dozens more on top of that. A couple (3 actually that I can recall) were quite extravagant country club affairs with open bars and lavish meals. Of those 3, two ended in divorces and I call that money pissed away. The divorce rate is well over 50% now so spend your money wisely.
I don’t remember much about the expenses for my first wedding, but I know the photographer was the most expensive part and that was “only” about $1200 bucks I think. My ex, bless her heart, did most of the planning details. However, I was involved in every aspect of my second wedding and I know pretty much what all of it cost.
We thought it would be really cool, and quintessentially Charleston, to get hitched at Boone Hall Plantation, site of many a Hollywood film. Prices to get married there range from $2000 to $5500 dollars or so, and that’s just to rent the site. Add in all the other goodies, and it gets insane really damned fast. I also wanted a Scottish-themed wedding….so why not combine the two and get married at the annual Charleston Scottish Games, held at Boone Hall every September?
Why, yes, I did get married there...
I already owned the kilt & all the finery (An expensive hobby as the full formal outfit cost me over a thousand bucks, but I get to wear it more than just that one wedding night). My only additional expenses for my regalia was like 20 bucks for a bow tie and 10 bucks for a feather hackle to adorn my hat. I designed our invites & reply cards myself and printed them at home, total cost being about 20 bucks for the paper and 26 for an ink cartridge. Crys wore a really cool Celtic knotwork medieval dress from Ancient Circles, for less than $300 (and she’s been able to wear it a couple more times for other things). Tickets to the Games were, at the time, $13.00 each. We put an entire wedding together for under $600 bucks, and had it outside at a gorgeous plantation mansion, surrounded by over 9,000 people, a couple hundred bagpipers, and kilts galore.
Now, here we are fast-forwarded to July 2010, and we get the lavishly overdone wedding of none other than former First Kid Chelsea Clinton. Sure, it’s the Clintons’ money and they are entitled to spend it as they see fit. Sure, Chelsea is their only child and they can spoil her if they want. Yes, Daddy is a former President and Mommy is a former Senator and current Secretary of State. However, as Democrats are always telling we Conservatives that money is evil (unless it’s their money, or our money being taken in taxes), capitalism is evil (except when it makes them rich), the nation’s economy is in the crapper and millions upon millions are unemployed and the Clintons dropped an estimated FIVE MILLION dollars on a wedding that I did for six Benjamins. Of course, this spending verily pales in comparison to fellow Filthy Rich Democrat John Kerry dropping 7 million dollars on a pretty sailboat and then ducking out on taxes.
So, then, what does a few million get you for your wedding?
For a start, you can hold the wedding at the Astor estate. You know, John Jacob Astor & all that what not; filthy rich, Harvard alums, part of the family fortune made in opium trading, Waldorf-Astoria…you know, those guys! I’ll still take my plantation locale, thanks.
The flowers, which in a few days will wither and die, reportedly cost $500,000. Half a million dollars for something that is dying as you look at it.
The dress was (of course) a Vera Wang design, coming in at about $25,000. I hear tell she wore $250,000 in jewelery in addition to her million dollar engagement ring.
The 500 or so guests got treated to such amenities as $250,000 in food, $100,000 in booze, an $11,000 cake (my mom made ours for free; call her & see if she’ll make you one too) and got to hear a $40,000 band in the $600,000 worth of air-conditioned tents complete with glass walls and $110,000 in tables and crockery. I think they said it was over $1500 a plate in total. (The rehearsal dinner, a smaller affair, was about a grand a plate, and was hosted by George Soros, the Scary Man Behind The Curtain Who Really Runs Obama.)
They were protected from scumbags and poor people like you & me by an additional $200,000 in extra security…on top of the Secret Service details enjoyed by the likes of former Presidents and current SecStates, paid for by you & me.
And then, when the guests crap away those expensive meals, piss away all that expensive booze, or puke a mixture of the two, they get to do it in stylish SuperPortaPotty trailers.The luxury crappers come on huge trailers, and are appointed with wood paneling, real porcelain toilets that flush, hot running water, and piped-in stereo muzak. They only cost $15,000; more than some Americans made last year who continue to vote Democrat despite getting kicked in the teeth by them.
And before you Leftist assclowns start barking about the Bush wedding a couple years ago, eat me. Maybe half the guests and it cost a mere $100,000. Compared to the likes of my wedding, yeah, that's a hell of a lot. However, it pales in comparison to this spectacle in Rhinebeck.
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to take people seriously when they talk about the woes of the little people when they have money enough to wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills. I don’t begrudge anyone the fruits of their labors, but don’t be hypocritical about things. Glass houses? More like antique lead crystal houses…..
Ya, I think Rush demurred because HE'D get grief for his extravagance!
ReplyDeleteVERY cool wedding picture, thanks for sharing yours! MANY HAPPY YEARS to you both.
And, to Chelsea. I may not agree with her folks but they seem to have raised a pretty decent girl, even if she is liberal :-)