[Dilbert San Diego]

This is crazy. This girl can’t justify spending $20,000 on a wedding. Fair enough, but because she can’t justify that spending, she would never get married at all? What the heck type of reasoning is this?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Agreed. My mother and father got married by the priest in the rectory (because my father, though baptized, was not a practicing Catholic) and they had 2 witnesses. Later, a reception at Aunt Clara's home, maybe 20 guests. Cost: well, I don't know, it was 1948, but it was very low.

Fast forward to 1988, when Don-o and I got married. It was in a Catholic church already lavishly decorated with poinsettias (it was on Dec 31), had a kind of pot-luck reception in the home of a friend, spent maybe $200 total.

What is the purpose of a wedding? Conspicuous consumption?

And we were, and are, conspicuously happy.