It’s perfectly natural to want a one-of-a-kind wedding day. Unfortunately for the special snowflakes out there, there are only so many ways to tie the knot. Specifically, there are 19. Pretty much every wedding you ever attend will fall into one of these categories.
Now, now, I understand that your special day was very rare and magical. But if you objectively peruse the categories below, I’m confident you’ll be able to sort basically every wedding you’ve attended in the last 15 years into one of the buckets provided. Then reevaluate and force yourself to confront the fact that you had a “Cool Wedding.”
A note on methodology: Like the vast panoply of life, weddings can be divided into a few overarching kingdoms. You’ve got your hipster weddings, your classic weddings, etc. Upon closer study, however, we can identify several distinct species (within which you’ll often find breeds or varietals). Allow me to serve as your humble Carolus Linnaeus:
The D.I.Y. Wedding
The minute the engagement was announced, the bride began working through a years-long backlog of Martha Stewart-approved projects. The week before the wedding, her bridal party glued and glittered and hole-punched until their fingers bled, and everybody has bags under their eyes at the ceremony from a night-before scramble. Jacked-up mason jars everywhere. You had no idea there were this many applications for mason jars.
The Basic Wedding
Your basic, off-the-shelf wedding. Now, in modern America, this covers a lot of ground. The category encompasses the white dress/black tux/First Corinthians affair and the five-day Indian bash equally. What distinguishes the Basic Wedding is that neither the affianced nor their families felt compelled to get cute or utterly break the bank.
The On-a-Budget-but-Nobody-Cares Wedding
It’s not held at the fanciest venue; sometimes the surroundings are downright underwhelming. Generally there’s some confluence of complicated logistics (grad school schedules, travel visas, far-flung relations) and genuinely chill personalities at work. The ceremony is short; barely anybody gets a plus one. Everyone has a perfectly lovely time and nobody minds the small disasters and there are no behind-the-scenes screaming matches.
The bride didn’t spend any more than a grand on her dress—and the cheaper it was, the more likely you’ll get an exact number. “I bought this at J. Crew for $200!” “Found it for $55 at a thrift store!” “Plucked it out of a garbage can at a methadone clinic for FREE!”
The Destination Rigamarole Wedding
Everybody grumbles as they pony up for flights and rooms at the required resort, but they proceed to Instagram their faces off. The flowers are amazing and the bride’s head looks like a rare-orchid expo. More hookups and “I’m so glad we came!” than a college campus on a Saturday night.
The Courthouse Elopement
While an On-a-Budget-but-Nobody-Cares Wedding might occur at a courthouse, it is not a Courthouse Elopement. The modern Courthouse Elopement is meant to say, “We’re spontaneous! We’re eccentric!” Generally, the bride wears a tea-length dress and a fascinator/cunning little veiled retro hat. Afterwards, they celebrate with cupcakes (or perhaps pie, if cupcakes are too “over”).
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