Reflections on our wedding

• Rachel and I married on June 9th, 2023.

  • We’d been dating for ~8 months, which is pretty short — I think the wedding came as something of a surprise to many, especially since Rachel was pretty young at the time (20).

  • We wanted to get married quickly because we thought we were particularly well suited for each other; we were excited about starting a family soon (see Rachel on “why baby now?”)

    • We were also inspired by Julia Wise’s writing on marrying young

  • We invited about 150 people, of whom 100 came

  • For the schedule of events, see Rachel & Austin’s Wedding

    

Planning

• Rachel and I had both organized large events together before. We’d met while organizing Future Forum, a 4-day 300 person conference; we’d also worked together on Manifund, and planned things like Taco Twosday retro. So we were pretty comfortable with coordinating many people.

  • I’ve seen other couples who haven’t organized large events to blow out all the stops for their wedding, in a way that ends up expensive or not fitting their true goals.
  • If you’re engaged, I might recommend throwing a large-ish gathering together, to practice the muscle of “event organizing” ahead of your wedding
  • We also had organizing help from Leilani Bellamy (who was Rachel’s boss for said conference), and Rachel’s mom Meg Donigan (who coordinated much of the food and surrounding events)

• We use technology & venues we were familiar with, rather than specialized wedding stuff. I was pretty happy with our choices:

  • Our wedding website as a Notion page: Rachel & Austin’s Wedding
  • Our RSVP & CRM tracking system was Airtable + emails
  • Google Photos to collect photos
  • Our “gifts registry” was our own website, Manifund

• While the whole endeavor was pretty low-stress, Rachel and I did still run into disagreements and conflict during the wedding planning process

  • There’s a stereotype where the bride cares more about the wedding being “perfect”; it was a bit true for us
    • At one point, I flagged that I didn’t feel very responsible for the wedding process; this made Rachel sad
    • I think I cared relatively more about the end goal of “being married”, while Rachel cared more about the wedding itself
    • Sometimes I say that our wedding was an example of “a perfect day for Rachel”, while Manifest 2023 was that for Austin
  • One saying that was helpful for me to keep in mind: “a wedding is a day, a marriage is a lifetime”

Venues

• It was important to me to have a traditional Catholic wedding, ie in a cathedral. We did this at the Mission Dolores Basilica.
  • To get married in the church, we did have to go through an entire process to certify that we would be a good Catholic couple, including meeting 4 times with the priest, getting a dispensation since Rachel would not be Catholic, going to a couples’ seminar on Catholic marriage, and pledging that we would raise our kids in the faith.
  • Some pieces of this seemed antiquated, eg checking on whether we were cousins, or defining roles for our bridal party
  • But it was also nice to see from a design standpoint, how the church shepharded its couples throughout history. And nice to have a template for the ceremony, rituals to follow which we didn’t have to invent from whole cloth

• Rachel liked the vibe of “picnic & hang out in the park”, so we reserved a spot in Golden Gate Park for the reception, rather than some private reception venue
  • This did make her anxious during the last couple weeks, when a chance of rain had been forecast. (But it all turned out fine in the end)
  • Some things we did:
    • Last-minute migrate from where we thought we had a reservation, to where we actually had our reservation. (This was fun!)
    • Intrusive questions activity, where wedding guests made groups with people they didn’t know, and asked questions that Rachel compiled
    • Classics: wedding cake, speeches, food and drinks
    • First dance, then more dancing and games like spikeball in the park
    • Resolved a prediction market

• We closed out with a bonfire and singing songs and making smores at Ocean Beach
  • This was fun in theory; in practice it ended up being windy & cold and so not that enjoyable. I’d do this part differently if we were getting married again

• Rachel’s mom felt strongly that there should be more events, as a large chunk of her family would be flying in from out of town. So we ended up doing a pre-wedding get-together in Dolores Park, and a post-wedding brunch & pickleball at Presidio Wall Playground Park

  • Essentially, we got to go park-hopping, making use of one of SF’s abundant natural resources

• Our venues were very cheap: the ceremony held at a Catholic cathedral was ~$2000; the reception at the park cost <$1000; the bonfire cost a few dinners for the Proof high schoolers to reserve our spot.

  • Statistically, a couple is more likely to stay together if their wedding has many attendees, and also if their wedding is cheaper. Of course, the number of attendees is generally correlated with price. So the trick is to figure out how to accommodate a lot of folks cheaply.
    • Of course, you shouldn’t plan on being a statistically average couple. Realistically we just liked the vibe of doing things on a budget, and doing them well

  We spent approximately $10k on the wedding in total

  • $3500 for photography
  • $2000 for church & priest
  • $2000 for Leilani’s time to organize
  • $600 Ubers
  • $2500 incidental purchases
    • Golden Gate Park permit
    • Picnic blankets, day-of materials
    • Clothing
    • Rings
  • Meg paid for all the food, as well as a night at the hotel

Appendix

• The pamphlet — our relationship in graphs

• The intrusive questions list
• The food
  • We did a mix of catering local restaurants
    • (which?)
  • Meg made an amazing wedding cake, I was sad to only have gotten one bite and then had to run off to do other wedding things

See also

• https://wasabipesto.com/wedding/