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In her op-ed “Prepare for your marriage, not your wedding,” Olivia Glisson claims that the wedding industry demands grand weddings and that the reason weddings are large and multiple-day events is that society pressures couples to throw “the best party for their friends.” 

An engagement can be fruitful, even if the couple plans a big party that includes all those who love and support them. A large celebration can help the couple usher in the next phase of their lives and allows guests to show the support they will continue to give the couple long after the reception concludes. 

As I have been planning my wedding over the last few months, the time of our engagement that we actually devote to wedding planning becomes a conversation about those we love and want to celebrate this milestone with more than a question about what the cake budget should be. 

Glisson claims that “a wedding often used to be a small affair with close friends and family at a church” but that weddings now are “extravagant parties aimed at showing off.” She is right that social media and the wedding industry have put pressure on how extravagant many modern weddings should be. 

But hosting a beautiful party to celebrate your marriage and the union of two families is a good thing. Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding feast at Cana. Though we don’t know who this couple is or how closely connected Jesus was to them, we do know it was a big enough party that they ran out of wine although they were prepared, as we see in the scriptures. I pray that my wedding is such a joyful gathering of everyone who my fiancé and I love and who love us that we also run out of wine. 

As I have planned my wedding, prices have shocked me: reception venues can cost more than $10,000, our flowers cost half of our budget, and simple cakes cost more when preceded by the word “wedding.” 

But our vision is toward the future, and our wedding day marks the unification of our families, creating a community that will support us through life’s challenges. 

Our preparation for marriage comes not from planning a massive rager for our college friends, but from providing a gathering of the people in our lives who mean the most to us and who we want to meet each other and create the community we will lean on forever. The people who held me as a baby, traveled across states to witness my First Communion, cheered at my track meets, and will watch me graduate this May are the people who will be there when I have my first child, lose a job, or buy my dream house. 

They deserve a part in another important milestone and a few glasses of wine at my wedding. To me, wedding planning has already begun unifying our families. It is some of the best marriage prep we can do while we enter a new commitment together alongside the people who have shaped each of us into who we are. 

Elaine Kutas is a senior studying English.