hello, good friend

My fiancé and I would like to use this forum to formally advocate elopement. Bring your parents, bring your sibs, bring your closest, wealthy-enough-to-fly-to-the-Caribbean friends. But, please, consider the advantages of small, private, tan-included affairs.

Sure, you say you won’t budge on hosting anything larger than the mythical “intimate family gathering.” But intimate family gatherings propagate exponentially when they include Great Aunt Mildred (Who is that anyway? She’s apparently related to everyone in the world but me.), who casually mentions the occasion to her Bunko cronies, and word travels to distant acquaintances, who all want inclusion on the please-buy-me-a-gift list, then suddenly you’re inviting your former preschool teacher, your penpal from North Dakota, and your bunkmate from the overnight camp you attended the summer after first grade.

A few days ago we entertained this idea: why not lever our unintentially lengthy guest list (no, seriously, we want y’all there) and request that our friends/strangers/random attendees pool their money and pay for our first year of rent? See, even if we do receive these lovely household items, we’ll have nowhere to store them. That’s because we don’t own an apartment. And that’s because we can’t find a single one-bedroom domicile in Baltimore-D.C. suburbia for less than…well, what we consider an atrocious amount of money.

Call it a rude awakening, but we’ve spent the past weekish in irritable states. We blame the housing market.

And while I’m recounting this predicament to my trusty cubicle-mate, Dan, he presents the most brilliant idea yet:

“Well, they make nice tents. That’ll last you at least a year.”

Maybe we’ll haul a pop-up residence to an island flight site. The weather’s certainly nicer.