They honeymooned in the vault.

Thaigo's sister Anything was the maid of honor.

Ok, sorry.

Were they were offered a chance at a honeymoon vacation contest in return for their completed credit card application?

Umm, wow. I hope they can look back with fond memories I suppose.

That's ... awful.

These stories always bother me a bit. Are they having the ceremony there because they really wanted to? Or, could they just not afford to have a proper wedding and so they make do? The 10/11 o'clock news attitude is always "how cute." But it's only cute in a really sad way to me. It's sort of sad that two responsible hardworking (big presumption) people can't afford a wedding. I admit, I reading way too much into it, but to me, its one of those things that is a symptom how bad the middle class has it.

No more 3rd cup of coffee for me.

It's almost (but not quite) as pathetic as the people who get married in Wal-Mart. I worked there for awhile in college (talk about a job that reminds you to stay in school) and the employee newsletters always had wedding photos from associates (or scarier yet, customers) who chose to wed in their local Wal-Mart. *shudder*

Bryan Adams?

I mean, he's great and all. I played Bryan Adams at my reception, but it was the best Cake-Cutting song ever... Cuts Like a Knife.

@ARP: You're not the only one! Especially a being married man whose entire wedding cost less than $5K

Actually, after reading the article, it seems like the branch mgr sprung this on the girl and her fiance and tried to use it as a marketing ploy. That's just pathetic and wrong...

How much you want to bet that the branch manager gets in trouble for allowing this to happen in the bank?

Talk about "Bank of Opportunity"... seriously, she's a teller at the bank, so she's not pulling down six figures. This might have been all they could afford. Still, try City Hall next time.

Did they get locked in the branch after they went to consummate the wedding in the supply room, and no one checked to see if anyone was still there?

Wonder what kind of service fees they were charged.

That's a new low and a new meaning for "Married to work". Or maybe they were out of vacation days.. still sad.

It actually sounds like they were planning on city hall, and then the bank just did this. It it was meant as a marketing thing, that's just horribly bad. It might have been something just really sweet from some people at the bank, and higher-ups took it and ran with it.

Just for the record, though, just because you get married at a city hall and forgo a large wedding does not indicate your financial status. There are many people who simply have differing priorities on where money should be spent. At the end of the day, you're legally wed either way.

@punkrawka: Well, maybe... but a lot of people like to get married in a way that's tied to how they met. Nothing wrong with that even though it may seem weird to some.

@fizzyg: Yup. My boss and his wife have plenty of money (he hasn't told me how much he makes, but my dad works a similar job at the same university, so I can guess, and I've helped the boss out with a few things that tip me off a bit) but they still went for a City Hall wedding, and I haven't heard one word of regret.

I was a little boggled that they did it over lunch and came back that same day ("we're off to get married, back later!" "!?!?!?!???!!!!!!!") but nope, absolutely nothing wrong with it.

A classmate in a photojournalism class I took a few years later did a photo project on courthouse weddings, getting permission from the judge to shoot photos, and the number of people waiting in line in the room was quite a bit larger than I had expected.

Hey, whatever works. My first wedding was small and next time around I'd do it that way again, a nice little event without a huge cash outlay -- but I'd have to talk to the bf to see what he wants, once he asks me first of course. I'm sure we can come up with a compromise, but honestly I'd rather have a fun day with friends and family than make a big deal out of it and spend way too much money.

FIZZYG- Agreed on the big wedding comment. I wasn't trying to imply that the people who get married at city hall are poor. Pehaps that's not even the case here, but there seems to be a strong correlation. I guess my comment was more a comment on our consumerism and priorties [We're getting married where we shop or work] and a more social comment on the state of the middle class. The fact that the news and big companies label as "cute" annoys me because I think most of the time, its not cute, its have-nots doing the best they can. So rather than think "how cute," I think what's wrong with our contry that these people couldn't do a "normal" wedding. Any buying into the cute factor, sort of makes us complacent about the state of the middle class an economy. I know this is more of a political discussion, but it sort of feeds into our consumer attitudes. Hell, if I were to do it all over again, I'd probably make my wedding a smaller/cheaper/destination affair.

@ancientsociety: Beat you we got married in L.A. no less for about $1500. We used the mother in laws backyard and only paid for supplies. One of our friend is a chef and did all the food as a wedding gift. DJ was a Ipod and my best man did the MC'ing. MIL gave us table and chair rentals as a gift. Most people at the wedding thought we spent about 6-8k. And were shocked when we told them how much we really spent.

My dream wedding is considerably less romantic than this.

Sign here, you co-sign here, and again here and here.

[Rubber stamp applied]

I now pronounce you man and wife!