7/7/7/7/$7<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
          What my wife and some of her highly refined peers consider social retardation on my part, I prefer to categorize as ceremonial bliss.
          When our older son got married a few years ago, I had an unrealistic idea of the costs involved. I thought I was generous when I budgeted $500 for the rehearsal meal. How many Whataburgers can fifty people eat?
          Turned out that we spent over $5,000 including the watermelon carved into a swan and extra horseradish for the prime rib.
          We had to log a beautiful stand of Douglas fir on some <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Idaho property to cover the next MasterCard payment.
          It was at the rehearsal dinner that Sandra and a couple of other wedding experts explained to dull old me that it was also customary for the parents of the groom to pick up the tab for the honeymoon.
          I stood there dumbfounded and socially retarded as the legion of Emily Post disciples made their case.
          Finally I responded: "You're all nuts."
          "Ron," they pleaded in perfect harmony, "do you want to be remembered on this special day as a tightwad?"
          "Yes," I told them, "I do."
          I tried to compromise. I unfolded my money clip and handed over two crisp $100 bills.
          "That won't get them to the airport," they told me. "They are going to Cancun for two weeks and staying in a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-night resort."
          "That's their choice," I responded. "I'm satisfied to get them to the airport."
          "It's customary to…" my wedding mentor started again, but I interrupted.
          "These kids make more money than we do, save more money than we do, and besides, they won't enjoy it as much if they get it for free."
          "You're incorrigible," they told me.
          "Is that a good thing?" I asked my younger son.
          He shrugged his shoulders and I took the opportunity to lower his bar of expectations: "You better start saving right now for your honeymoon."
          If you haven't noticed, wedding prices are out of control. I read in a national mews magazine that the average cost of a typical wedding is $30,000!
          I always wanted a daughter, but now I am grateful I had boys willing to pay for their own honeymoons.
          How can parents of the bride afford these extravaganzas? How materialistic has our culture become for girls to expect such lavish treatment?
          My unmarried son got back from a giant wedding and reported that circulating rumors claimed the wedding cost half a million dollars! They spent $100,000 on flowers!
          We're in the wrong business. These wedding chapels springing up around the Metroplex are a license to print money. I love the one-stop shopping gimmick. They get to sell everything at inflated prices, and what set of decent parents could tell their little girl "no."
          With wedding costs spiraling out of control, I found the anti-wedding, anti-price-gouging antics of a local Metroplex couple to be both creative and brilliant.
          Annie Bosworth and John Vanek, both of sound mind and body, elected to get married at the 99 Cents Only Store in Lewisville. One of their friends joked that they got hitched at a dollar store because they couldn't afford Wal-Mart!
          Bargain shopping guru Sue Goldstein masterminded the coup, and her monthly magazine, The Underground Shopper, broadcast the event live on her weekly show of the same name.
          The whole idea of the counter-culture wedding "is to draw attention to the ludicrousness of the extravagance of weddings," commented Ms. Goldstein.
          Well I say it's about stinking time someone brought some sense to the wedding insanity.
          For $500 a couple could have a real blow-out at a dollar store. Moon Pies and Shasta Sodas for everyone! Party hats, streamers, cheap perfume, and beef jerky for everyone in attendance! Who couldn't go away satisfied?
          Here's my contribution to the rebuking of contemporary materialism. If you want to get married in a dollar store and hold your costs under $500, I'll marry you for $1 plus expenses – gas, moon pies, sodas, and hair tonic. Maximum preacher expenses guaranteed to run under $20. And I'll do it with pleasure, preach from the scriptures, sign the license ($41 these days) and dance at the reception down the aisle near the imported cleaning supplies.
          Last Saturday, 7/7/7, I married three couples: One at 7:00am, one at 1:00pm, and the last one at 7:00pm. How can you pass up 7/7/7/7? Good cosmic vibes prevail when you can line up four sevens.
          I'm proud to say we did the early service for less than seven dollars. No buildings fee (we hustled in and out before the caretaker was awake). No flower costs (picked our own from the serenity garden). The couple recycled rings for the time being. None of the three of us got a new tie or shoes. We didn't rent a thing.
          We prayed, read the scriptures, talked about covenant, laughed and cried for under seven dollars.
          When I told my younger son and wife about it, they collectively cringed. I think I learned enough at the 7/7/7/7/$7 wedding that we can cut some corners on his extravaganza if he ever finds a girlfriend. I told him it's going to take a special woman.
          Let me remind you that it is not the amount of money you spend on a wedding that makes it great. What makes for the perfect wedding are two soul-mates, deeply in love, willing to commit themselves before God to a relationship founded, grounded, and sustained by the continuing, endless grace of God.
          Don't let the world mis-define true greatness.
          If you want to be found great in the eyes of God, send your $30,000 to missionaries in West Africa and let me marry you for seven bucks and a Moon Pie.
          Long-live the 99 Cents Only Store Wedding!