Wedding Shmedding: Couple Donates Chunk of Nuptial Budget to Haiti Relief

A Minnesota couple donates their entire food budget to Haiti relief and plans a pared-down affair.

Weddings are beautiful, special, once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) events. But let's face it: They can often be pretty over-the top, too. And with so much devastation in the world, it certainly seems like some brides have lost perspective when they melt down over details like dresses and flowers.

But bride-to-be Leah Bogen is anything but a high-strung Bridezilla. On the contrary, she and her fiancée chose to scale back their affair and donate a full quarter of their wedding budget to Haiti relief efforts.

Bogen got the idea when she scanned her Sunday paper, which featured devastating images of Haiti, and contrasted them with the smiling models on the covers of her bridal magazines.

"How can you not want to send money?" she asked KARE-TV in Minneapolis.

So she broached the idea with her fiancé, Will Nicholson. His reaction? "He sort of gave me this shocked look and said, 'Yes, I love you. Do it.'"

"If this was going to make things more perfect for her I thought, 'What the heck, let's do it,'" added Will. (Aww ...)

Overall, the couple is donating $2,500 — their entire food budget — to Partners in Health.

And what does that mean for the food at their June nuptials? "We have some ideas. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were the first ones I could come up with. You can put those together pretty fast and have them ready for everybody," declared Bogen.

No matter what they end up serving, Bogen and Nicholson hope their act inspires others.

"If anyone has anything they can cut out from their budget and maybe send a donation that would be the message we'd like to get across," said Bogen, as Nicholson nodded in agreement.

And with socially-conscious values like that, we have a feeling that regardless of the budget, the couple will have one special wedding. How's that for starting off on the right foot?

Photo courtesy of planetka via stock.xchang