Why I'm most likely not doing a big wedding

Friends and family have, in recent years, asked me when I'm going to get married to my long-time partner. We've been together for seven years now - I'm 26, here's turning 32, so one could say we're the right age for marriage. We also know everything about one another and we could live with all that sordid information. We are best friends. I guess that's as good a qualification as any, although admittedly not quite romantic. 

We are the least romantic people I know. It'd be awkward to do a pre-nup shoot canoodling in the grass, or even a "through the years" AV presentation. We hardly have any pictures together, nor do we take any of one another. We don't know when our anniversary is except it's sometime May. Or June? We're not sure. That's the narrowest I can get.

He doesn't like most things that I like. He is my harshest critic. I don't understand his passion for cars or why he doesn't eat spaghetti or sinigang (seriously who does that? WHO?). But we can be completely ourselves with each other - no masks or pretensions - and we like what we see even though it's sometimes not pretty.

So, knowing this, can you imagine us doing a big wedding with all the trimmings? 

I suppose weddings exist so that people and the god of their religion can witness the couple's love and vows to one another. It's like...a public contract. Two people will do it in front of a hundred people so that their words are writ in the memories of their guests. There would be pressure for the couple not to go back on their promises, because they had an audience when they made them (although that's not much of a deterrent if they really wanted to hurt each other in the future).

I suppose weddings are in essence a celebration of love. That's valid for people who are in love that way. But does it have to be ridiculously expensive? In the Philippines, a P750,000 wedding is already considered "matipid". A million-peso wedding is just about right. I find it stupid to spend that much money, unless you and/or your parents are loaded that that amount means little. 

Let's be clear here, I think that you should spend however much money you want on anything you want as long as you have it to spend. No judgment! It's your money, so do whatever you please with it. I'm just talking about my preferences and situation here.

Now everything that I spend, I earn by working hard every day. I stopped asking financial support from my parents the day I moved out, which is about two weeks after I graduated from college. That said I can not imagine spending P750,000+ for a wedding. We can find the money, sure, but we won't spend it on something silly as a big wedding. I'd put it as down payment for a condo, or cash for traveling Europe. 

I definitely wouldn't spend it on one day, just to show that I intend to love someone forever. I know it, he knows it, do I need to wear a big white gown and pay for a fancy reception just to prove it?

I feel that many weddings these days are just to show that a couple and their families can afford it. It's a pride thing - they feel that their relatives, friends, and co-workers expect something nice (and they do as if they deserve it somehow which is really weird), so they go all out to deliver a grand event. Sometimes the couple/families go in debt financing the wedding, which doesn't make sense to me.

When I get married, I'll do it in a hotel and it will be presided by a judge. We will invite 75-100 of our friends and family, and we'll all have a nice relaxed dinner. Maybe we'll talk about our love story a little bit (not very romantic I'm afraid), thank everyone for coming, and then everyone would go home with a cupcake.

Then we'd go home to a new condo under our name, and then jet off to Europe after.