Isn’t shopping online à la eBay, Craigslist or Kijiji a bit cheap? If I buy things at a discount/dollar/department store, won’t people consider it (*gasp*) tacky?

 
Offbeat Bride posted a great article on this very topic. The short and simple answer is: for pretty much anything you can insert into that sentence, the answer is YES.
 

Tacky
Pronunciation: \tak-ee\
Function: adjective, tack-i-er, tack-i-est.
Etymology: Americanism; appar. identical with earlier tack(e)y small horse, pony, poor farmer; of obscure orig.
Date: 1880-85
1. not tasteful or fashionable; dowdy.
2. shabby in appearance; shoddy: a tacky, jerry-built housing development.
3. crass; cheaply vulgar; tasteless; crude.
4. gaudy; flashy; showy.

What most people fail to realize is that you can spend all the money in the world on a wedding… and it can still be the tackiest event ever staged. Allow me to rest my case with the following link.

 
Money and taste do not always go hand in hand. The thing is – the T word gets bandied around far too often, when what’s really meant (for the most part… and, clearly, there WILL be exceptions) is clichéd.
 
Well, of COURSE your wedding is going to be clichéd. You’re planning to stand in a big white (or pink, or red, or whatever colour suits your fancy) dress in front of all your friends and family, surrounded by flowers & tulle, fairy lights and glitter (see? The road to Tacky can often be quite short), to promise to devote the rest of your life to another human being in a ceremony that’s already been done millions of times by millions of people. So originality isn’t really something that’s easy to come by. And why should you kill yourself trying to have the most unique wedding of all time. There’s nothing wrong with taking the basics and adding a few of your own flourishes. And the fact is: it will be the only wedding ever to star You & Your Leading Man/Woman… that alone will make your wedding an original. And that, in and of itself, precludes it from being clichéd and/or tacky. Hopefully.
 
But there are no rules that say you MUST buy your wedding favours/ decorations / shoes / jewelry (this really is a list that can continue on for days) at Le Fancy Pants Bridal Boutique Of Wedding Wankery. You’re welcome to, if you actually enjoy the idea of paying WAY more than you need to on items you’re going to use once.
 
It’s a wedding. It’s a ritual. Rituals by their very nature are done to death (yes, I do realize that can be taken quite literally). Something that’s done to death becomes a cliché… and from cliché it’s a quick jaunt to tacky. Much like beauty: tacky really is in the eye of the beholder.
 
As far as I’m concerned, the only truly heinous and unwavering moments deserving of the Tacky Scarlet Letter are the following: Including registry information in an invitation; Requesting, outright, to be given cash gifts only; and Dollar Dances (or any variation on that theme).
 
Everything beyond that is open for interpretation. Because, although, an idea itself might sound tacky – it’s the execution of said idea that really counts. And there is a point where the whole “is it tacky” question really becomes a case of good ‘ol unadulterated snobbery.
 
So if shopping on eBay or at your local Dollar Store (hey – they have some incredibly pretty trinkets for decorating… on which I’ll elaborate at another time) is what makes you (and, more importantly, your budget) comfortable,  I say have at it. Chances are, your guests will be none the wiser – unless you’ve got a foghorn in place of a voice box, like me, and like to share everything… with everyone. (What can I say? I have no shame. I’ve made my peace.)
 
And if anyone is tactless enough to have a problem with where you’ve purchased your table decorations or how much you’ve paid for your favours & invitations… screw ‘em. Seriously – do you honestly have time to waste caring about what someone with their head that far up their own arse really thinks? They likely spent 4 times as much as you did for their own wedding… and didn’t have nearly as much fun.
 
[Note: the author wishes to let it be known that she fully expects aspects of her own wedding to be brandished with the Tacky wand. She also wishes to let it be known that she’s totally cool with that.]

Oh, happy day! My very first eBay purchase has walked back into my life and made me as giddy as a schoolgirl.
 
Originally thought to be lost (presumably last winter when we moved into the Rockstar House), I stumbled upon my gloriously inexpensive ($8 – beat that!) and fabulously glam stilletos (my heart weeps with the fact that they’re too big to actually wear out of the house) while searching for – of all things – the carrying strap for my yoga mat.
 
Yes, I really am that disorganized. Ask LX (my fiancé) about the pile of clean clothes that lives (albeit, in different incarnations) on the armchair in our bedroom, or the boxes that I’ve yet to unpack but proclaim weekly that I “really need to do something about.”
 
Who cares! Behold… aren’t they lovely?
 

 
You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.
 

…or so the old Scottish proverb goes.

And in keeping with that spirit:

My name is Lisa and I’m an eBay Bride.

There. I’ve said it. And I feel no shame about it, either.

So, what’s an eBay Bride? Well, I’d say that there are any number of permutations of the eBay Bride (as many as there are items for sale on eBay, really). But the most important – and determining – factor would be our desire to NOT be in debt for the sake of one day of celebrating.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I do realize that there are some things that you simply cannot cheap out on. A wedding dress, for example, usually ends up being one of the pricier items in a bride’s budget.  Of course, some girls are lucky enough to find that vintage, stunner of a dress for less than $100. But I think we can all agree just how unrealistic that is to hope for. Having said that, the idea of spending $1,200 and up for a dress that will be worn only once, makes me more than a little twitchy.

And, so, in my search for elegant bits of shiny to make my Big Day as classy & beautiful as the occasion merits – I’ve found that veering away from wedding boutiques (or pretty much any retailer that uses the word Bridal or Wedding in its name) is definitely the way to go. Thus, without any real roadmap or initial plan to do so… I’ve become an eBay Bride.