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Monday, October 3, 2011

My Cheap Honeymoon

Sherilin over at laughing my abs off wrote a post about her honeymoon and invited others to share.
So, here is me... sharing.

Honeyman and I didn't have a lot of money in those days.
What makes it different from these days?

You could do more with less 14 years ago.

We didn't do the nice traditional wedding.
I didn't care.

I had done all the big wedding planning before.
The nice dress, the fancy invitations, the minister.
But, the wedding was not to be.

I should have known we were doomed when that first groom-to-be wanted to play Randy Travis during the ceremony.

But, since Honeyman and I were keeping it simple, we got nice rings.

We also made plans to get it done on the Friday before Labor Day.
He had no vacation time, but this way he'd have a three day week-end for the honeymoon.

We went down and got our marriage license and they gave us instructions on getting married at the courthouse.
This was our plan and so this was great.
On the sheet it said we could just go to the family court and find a judge. We didn't need an appointment.
If we did it offsite, judges could charge a minimum fee of $55.

No problem.
The courthouse was fine.

Except, naive me.
I believed it would be that easy.

Did I say we had not a lot of money?
Yeah, we had just enough to go away for a couple days.

And than, we get to the courthouse with Kiddo, my sister, and Honeyman's brother and we can't find a judge to do the deed.
A nice lady called and found one that would do it on his lunch hour, but didn't like marrying people at the courthouse because it was so "unromantic".(Translation-he wanted the money)
By then, we figured we had no option but to have him do it and pay the money out of our measly honeymoon fund.

We went to the judge's house and got married in his flower garden.

After that, we drove down to the inlaws to drop Kiddo off for the night.
We obviously were staying home.

But, they gave us $100 for a wedding gift so we got to go away after all.

Yes, we had about $150-$200 to go on a honeymoon.
It worked for us.
We went just one state over.
To Minnesota- Land of 10,000 Lakes.

We ordered in pizza.
I don't even remember the name of the little town we stayed in.
The room was under $50/night and it was a decent room too.

But, we went to one of those places where they build a little town and have people living like they did 150 years ago.

We also went to a cave.
I like caves.
What was funny there was the DNR guy, telling us about the cave.
Said it's a great place to go during an earthquake.
An earthquake!

I know the safest place I feel when the ground is shaking is underground.
Honeyman and I wanted to laugh.

How many earthquakes are in Minnesota?
And if there is one why would you go into a cave?

OK, they get sink holes once in a while, but I would want to be underground at the point either.

Maybe he meant tornado and said the wrong word?
I can hope.

Probably the most memorable thing about that trip was the news.
Waking up and turning the TV on to find that Princess Diana had died.

It didn't ruin us celebrating our marriage, but it was very unexpected.
So, I'll always remember when she died.

I'd include pictures, but that was before I had a digital camera and I have no idea where all my honeymoon pictures are.

14 comments:

  1. so was it more romantic to get married in the judge's garden rather than his office? it probably made for better pictures, if any were taken.
    at least you got to go away for a couple nights. we only had 3 nights & only went a couple hours away.

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  2. I wanted a very small low key wedding and ended up with something only slightly resembling that. If I do it again it will be a courthouse wedding.

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  3. The judge wanted a more romantic wedding for his wallet...Still, you had a good time no? SUre would like to see some pics if you can find them.

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  4. Matt and I had $500 for our honeymoon. My inlaws got us plane tickets to Florida (and back) as our gift, so I found us a hotel room that was $100 for a WEEK. Guess what ended up being a hooker haven? Our "hotel". Yeah. It was OK though. It was pretty much a dive and how we didn't come with bedbugs I'll never know.

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  5. Like the Judge doesn't make enough money already hey? But in any event, your wedding sounded simple and uncomplicated and about the two of you! I love it!

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  6. Sherilin, My sister did take a few pictures. I just need to locate the scans on the computer. It is just nice we were able to get away. Some friends got married this past Saturday and they couldn't even afford to go anywhere. :(

    Amber, Hopefully you will never have another wedding. I am sure if I let either mother have a say, it wouldn't have been so simple.

    Alex, We did have a good time. It's all about the company, you know. I'll have to dig out some pictures.

    Sara, Some things just seem like such a good deal that you can't pass it up. Than you found out why it was such a good deal. I've stayed in a few of those hotels. If you're a light sleeper, it isn't a good place to be.

    Tracy, It was nice. No fuss. No muss.

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  7. Well, it IS more romantic to get married in a flower garden. I'm guessing the photos are lovely.

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  8. Lemons, Yes, it is more romantic. Maybe the judge really meant that. I'll have to see how many photos I can find.

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  9. Well, when I finally do get married, I have no idea what it will be. Hard to have a small wedding when you have 7 brothers and sisters and a gazillion nieces and nephews. Plus all the press that will be there to witness the astonishing event that Bud and I are finally getting married after a decade together. I want as many witnesses as I can get, so he can't tell me it was all a dream. As long as we have great food and good booze, I don't really care where it's at.

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  10. Sue, I do see your point. We didn't even invite our parents. We just had his brother and I had my sister. I have an older sister but she wasn't invited either. We never really thought beyond who we needed for witnesses to sign the papers.
    I am all about great food and good booze. C.R. isn't too far. I'll help you celebrate. :)

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  11. At least you have a great story to tell....but I don't like caves one bit...tornado, hurricane, earthquake...it wouldn't matter because there is no way you'd get me down in a cave! Thanks for visiting my blog!

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  12. Eva, I grew up visiting caves. We'd take a vacation and if there was one in the vicinity, we'd go. My mom loves them. Or she used too. It's hard to tell with her these days.
    And thank you for stopping by.

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  13. My husband was best man at a wedding on that day. It was such a shock to wake and hear the news about Diana, but we never forget our friends anniversary!

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  14. Kara, That does make it pretty memorable.

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Thanks for commenting.