Welcome to the 21st!!!

As you no doubt have noticed, I have added my voice to the untold millions "blogging" on the net.  While I plan to use this primarily as a place to keep track of the things going on in personal life, I will try to add info regarding life in general here in Nevada.
The current event unfolding in my life now is a wedding!  Yeah, because she really is my best friend I hope to build a life with.  Boo, because weddings are a major pain in the...  Now, as irony has, I have a good deal of experience in planning events like this.  I studied theatre in college, and there I helped to bring around a number of productions as either a designer, Stage Manager, or an actor, and frequently a combination of those.  The main difference is resources.  In theatre we had a good sized budget and many, many people to help.  Here it's me, her, and her Mom.  With a few others who are each doing a specific thing, such as flowers, the cake, etc.  Still I am amazed at the challenge that having a wedding presents.  The one that's killing me is the difficulty to get an officiant.  Nevada is, of course, well known for it's ease in allowing a couple to marry, but if you want to be the one to marry them, it's an incredibly involved process.  You need to present papers proving that you're an ordained minister, plus letters of good standing, and fill out forms, then get a background check with fingerprints.  It's crazy.  I bring this up because a friend of our who we wanted to perform the ceremony, will not be able to now as we've only just learned this.  Too late, of course.
Also to save money and for a personal touch, I opted to make the dress and the wedding parties tops.  This would have been a better idea if I weren't such a procrastinator.  Oh well, I'll finish, I'll just not sleep much.  At least the dress is finished, at it looks beautiful.  But I can't quite fathom why we, as a culture, put so much emphasis on the details of this ceremony.  It's certainly an important day, and well worth celebrating.  But I'm perplexed by the need to make it such a large production.  It's one thing if you're a wealthy heiress and have nothing better to do for six months, but we bothe work, went to school, and don't have all that much money, yet we're trying to make it look like we are spending a fortune.  And it's not just, it's me too.  I feel obliged to make a grand show of the whole thing for the sake of our families.  Especially those people we never see coming in from the other side of the country.  I feel this odd presure to prove to them that I'm going to be a good husband for her.  And I don't usually feel pressure to prove myself to anyone, much less a gaggle of east coasters I'll more than likly never see again.
Actually, that's not really true either.  It's for her that I'm doing all this.  Because it means something to her.  I guess that's a fair reason.  I just hope that if I ever have any daughters, I can help them to find beauty in simpleness.