I got married on April 21, 2015.

It was an “agile” wedding.

What does that mean?

It means we knew we had a deadline and a budget. But we also knew there was a certain amount of uncertainty leading up to the day, and there would be some surprises.

Sure enough, there were some surprises.

My wife wasn’t thrilled with the makeup artist she hired.

The English/Spanish interpretor we hired (it was a bi-lingual wedding, officiated in English, but to a mostly Spanish-speeking attendance) was horrendous. Those of us who spoke both languages heard two sermons. Both were reasonably good sermons, but entirely unrelated to each other.

The rings we exchanged were uncomfortable, and I have since lost mine. I’m not sure if she’s ever worn hers beyond that day.

The piano player we secured for the day refused to read the sheet music prepared, and as a result the song my brother sang came out horribly, because the accompaniment was off key, off tempo, and… just… bad.

The DJ that the venue provided insisted on packing up at 9pm, just as everyone was getting into the groove.

But we did get married. We prioritized the most important things first (like the wedding dress, which we had bought months in advance), and sending out invitations. From there we worked our way down the list to the least important things.

Of course everyone’s taste is different, but we decided that the piano music wasn’t that important to us. Flowers were also low on our priority list. One of the lowest priorities for us was wedding rings. We were nearly out of money, and out of time, so we just went to a local jeweller and asked for some of the cheapest silver rings they had. I think we spent US$20 on the pair of rings. We figured we could replace them with nicer rings at a later date (that date has yet to come).

So by focusing on the things we thought were most important first, when the deadline arrived, and money ran out, we were assured that we had the best wedding possible given our constraints.

And we did!

We were both happy with the result, despite a few annoying surprises.