After chatting about how she and her fiance had chosen to get married over winter break while she was in her home country for a visit, my student friend began talking about how she planned to have a small wedding here. "We are going to have a wedding later in my home country, but I don't really want one," she complained, as she described the necessary details. It sounded to me much like what is required of a larger sized wedding in the States, but I didn't argue her point knowing the pressure put on her in her culture to have a larger, more complicated wedding would be much more difficult to withstand than here in the States.
To be honest, I don't know when the change between a complicated wedding versus a simple wedding transitioned into me helping her, I just noted she really didn't have an plans, and within a few minutes I was suggesting pastors and locations. I created a short list of things to be done (it was under ten items, she really wasn't kidding when she said she wanted a "simple wedding,") and wouldn't have thought to do much beyond that but she seemed so grateful. She even said something about me being the maid of honor....Oh my.