Today is the day to make up your answer.

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I'm at the age where everyone I know is getting married or engaged, or planning on getting married and engaged. Maybe it's that I'm friends with a lot of creative people or maybe it's just that can-do, out-do spirit, but it seems like a lot of people work hard to put exactly the perfect personal touch on the wedding. The wedding somehow has to be individual (it represents us!) unique (nobody would ever do this but us!) and perfect (IT HAS TO BE PERFECT!).

I used to think that, as a creative person, it would be cool to have a creative wedding. Multimedia, fun songs, things to read, gifties. But watching my friends go through the exhaustion of a wedding, I realize that it seems like more effort I would like to go through for my hypothetical wedding. It seems exhausting, and expensive. I think the average wedding in America these days costs $900,000 dollars. The average gown costs $45,000, the cake $600, and place cards are typically $86 a pop. I might need to fact-check these figures. So when you consider the personalized butterflies and the skywriter and the dogs that you trained to howl your theme song, it really gets up there.

So I figured, if/when I get married, I'd just do it 'whatever'-style. The path of least resistance. But then, I thought, what kind of American Girl would I be if I just went with the flow? A non-memorable wedding is a disservice to everyone. And most importantly, my married friends would sit there, all pregnant and stuff (because we know that's how it's going to be) saying "Well my wedding was so much better." Not that that's how it is with us gals, of course (yes it is).

So here is my new plan. I'm going to set out, when I get married, to have the crappiest wedding on record. That way, it will be memorable but also on the cheap. I'm not going to have the wedding in a church, because you have to rent a church and pay the priest. I'm going to get some bum ordained online and have him do it outside on the sidewalk and anybody who doesn't make it to the ceremony is automatically barred from the reception. I'm going to have the reception at a MacDonald's, one of the ones with a PlayZone or whatever it is called, although if it's a lot of money to rent out the PlayZone then I think we'll just congregate in the dining area. The food will be from MacDonald's but nobody is allowed to order a la carte: it must be off the Value Menu. The cake will be a hot apple pie: just one, though. I wish I could have Ronald MacDonald do the services but that might be a little too special and funny.

I can't think of what would be appropriate when it comes to flowers so I guess I'll just let the natural fry scent permeate the reception. The music is going to be whatever is on the speakers at the restaurant but DANCING IS MANDATORY. I'm going to have one of the restaurant employees give a speech but she has to do it through the drive through box, which means that everyone must go outside to listen to the speech. Also, the wedding will be in Chicago in January.

In terms of what to wear--there is a co-worker here at my office who, despite being a grown woman, owns not one but two pairs of overalls with a teddy bear stitched on the front. I figure I'll ask if I can borrow whichever one she's not wearing that day.

Those are really all the ideas I have right now and I think that will pretty much be the wedding, then. I intend to shut everything down at about 6:45 PM and in case you don't know that it's time for you to get the hell out, maybe turning off the lights and the guy pushing the mop will indicate it for us.

I will be registering at Bloomingdales, however.