AisleDash

I might not have had such a small wedding had it not been a shot gun wedding – for him. My husband is a British citizen and in the process of changing from a student visa to a work visa, we discovered that INS had lost his previous paperwork, and (red-tape-red-tape) due to this apparent error of theirs, were going to require him to leave the country. We were already engaged for some nebulous, future date, so we said "Let's get married!" And we did. Two weeks later on a Friday evening, at the restaurant on a lovely golf course. Only my parents, my sister, my husband's best friend and the judge were there – seven people total. I wore a butter colored suit-style (non-wedding) dress from Ann Taylor, and we all went inside for dinner afterward. End of logistics. It was an inexpensive but lovely evening.

So, if for whatever reason (time, money) you want a small civil ceremony on short notice, here's how you can do it. First, choose a less popular time for your wedding, such as Friday evening instead of Saturday (do make sure the venue has the automatic sprinklers turned off-here's us having a mid-wedding shower!).

Second, ask a judge to marry you; they are more flexible about venue and typically able to accommodate short schedules better than church professionals. Have a friend (in our case the judge's family) be the photographer; it's free and easy to arrange. Finally, picking a restaurant as your location gives you an all-in-one venue – food and everything done!

I don't have any big regrets, although it would have been good if my in-laws could have come out on short notice, some day I hope to have a chance to wear the Cinderella dress I never had, and getting my wisdom teeth pulled instead of honeymooning in the tropics was not the best. But, as it turns out, the important thing is being together in the long-term. If you look for them, there are plenty of opportunities to celebrate after you're married.