Well, so far my wedding day *has* been the greatest day of my life, probably. 😉
Firstly, I am religious. So, as Kean said, the spiritual side is most important to me. Being Eastern Orthodox, we have a set wedding ceremony, no actual vows, and in my opinion it is extremely beautiful.
To me, the church part was the one that actually mattered. Being betrothed to one another at the entrance to the church, my dad walking me down the aisle after to hand me over to Seraphim, standing there even though I hated my shoes 😉, drinking from the same cup of wine, having our hands tied together as we're led around the table wearing crowns attached to one another by a ribbon... all the symbolism held in marriage lasting forever. It is so, so beautiful. 🙂
The reception was fun, but I had no appetite (even though I hardly ate before the wedding, and we got married at 5:30 in the evening). We had no more than 100 guests at the wedding, but I hated having to go around and talk with everyone. 😉 *is bad person* We had to clear away the tables in order to start the dancing, so the dancing was prolonged longer than I would have liked, as I was starting to get tired and wanted to leave. I ended up splitting my first dance song (the waltz from My Fair Lady) between my dad and my husband, and that was the only dancing I did. 😉
There were lovely memories from the reception however... including the old Carpatho-Russian tradition of the bride wearing a scarf tied under her chin and sitting in a chair. Around me everyone else joined hands and danced around (our priest played the accordion during this) and Seraphim had to break through the circle to get me. 😉 He finally got through, and grabbed me, and I ended up on the floor, but it was lots of fun. 🙂
So the reception was not as "perfect" as I may have wanted (although my cake and food was in every way... especially the cake - I went non-traditional and it was all chocolate 😉). But the wedding is what made my day. For a variety of reasons we had to keep it as cheap as possible, and we were able to do so. We spent more than I might have liked, but we spent QUITE a lot less than your average wedding. It helped that I and my girlfriends and some other folks helped to decorate the church, etc. We had to pay for the cost of the ingredients for the food, but a very dear friend of mine (and most amazing woman) cooked everything (with our help), planned the wedding, made my CAKE (beautiful, beautiful cake, best tasting thing *ever*), and the like. We kept everything pretty simple.
A wedding doesn't have to be big and fancy. But to me it is important because of what it symbolizes, represents and celebrates. 🙂 I think it helps that in my church's wedding ceremony, great marriages from Christian Tradition are mentioned and it is prayed that our marriage will be as long-lasting and fruitful as those.
Just because some people today will throw huge elaborate weddings and they won't last, or they do it multiple times, etc., doesn't mean that a wedding itself is any more useless because of that. If you want it to mean more than "hey look, we got married, everyone look at the bride!" then it can. For me it wasn't about looking at the bride (hey, I would've been fine if everyone ('cept the photographer, priest and my husband, etc. 😉) didn't look at me 😉), it was about spending the rest of my life together with one man to whom I was giving myself, body, heart and soul.
Dunno how well that answered your question, but basically, yeah. My wedding was without a doubt the best day of my life. 🙂
