Mission Creep

Planning for the wedding is clipping along, but I'm still aghast at the time, resources, and money that today's weddings involve. I've gained a new-found admiration for a couple of friends of mine who eloped last year. The most troubling part of the wedding planning is the mission creep: started at 50 guests, now it's closer to 100; started with simple food, now a full-service caterer; started with a fiend as officiant, now it's an episcopal minister. And it goes (almost) without saying that the *lavish* 15K budget I'd originally imagined is taking out U.S. deficit dimensions. But once all of the deposits go out, we'll be pot committed, as they say in poker, so there's little we'll be able to do about it.