1. Set a wedding date. This is the imperative first step to planning your wedding--without a wedding date, none of the guests (including you or your soon-to-be spouse) will know when to show up. Most people like to have theirs during the summer, because they're uncreative and afraid to get snow on the bridal gown, even though snowflakes are beautiful and always match the dress (unless you live in New York, where the snowfall is piss-yellow, or Los Angeles, where it's fuck-red). Don't be afraid to have the ceremony during winter, Johnny Fearless had his wedding in November, and the worst that happened was someone spilled a bunch of shit. Kevin had his on Halloween, which was cool because no one knew who they were fucking afterward in the hotel due to the mandatory costume rule, plus, the cake was made out of those black and orange candies. A good way to save money is to choose off-peak hours, like a Wednesday after midnight, or on 9/11.

2. Set a budget for your wedding. It's gonna be under $100. Done.

3. Start working on and finalize the guest list. You need to keep the invite roster small and eliminate all of those jackals you don't really like who think they're entitled to an exciting night of food and booze on your dime. Send out a mass-email to all your frenemies that your Facebook account got hacked, and delete them. Then, set up a new dummy account and re-friend them, but change your relationship status to "No longer engaged... and I don't want to talk about it." Now you are free to invite the people you actually want there, which should mainly be anyone who you're sure has enough money to buy you a present, and any friends known for making a scene when drunk, in case the reception gets boring. Struggling AA members, jealous and possibly violent exes, and former strippers are all welcome.

4. Select your wedding party. Who has earned the right to stand up next to you as you pledge total devotion for the next 3-6 years of your life to your true love? Narrow down the pool of your assuredly huge group of close friends with the following parameters: Who has bailed you out of jail vs. who has caused you to be in jail? Who have you experimented with homosexually vs. who has experimented with YOU homosexually? Who has kept a murder secret vs. who would you secretly like to murder? Also, who is photogenic? You don't want any fuglies ruining your fucking photo album, house-guests will be asking to look at your wedding pictures every day for the rest of your life, so make sure it will resemble the most recent JCPenney's catalog at worst.

5. Research, select, and book a ceremony site and reception site. Eschew the traditional church, temple, or courthouse in favor of something less pricey and more exciting: an unlicensed and possibly dangerous cult. They're just as weird as regular religions but less money-hungry, not as hoighty-toighty, and a little more ominous. The wedding locale itself might be a little cramped in someone's basement or dangerous like in a cave or the haunted Ovaltine factory, but we have a budget here, people. As for the reception, the best option is to scope out a few traditional halls and find out when they close and when the employees and managers all leave for the night. Set the reception for a few minutes after that, and break the fuck in. We're in a recession, you have to take what you want. Either that or rent out a couple lanes at a bowling alley.

6. Select and reserve your wedding officiant (minister, priest, rabbi, etc). Everyone has that one friend who's always talking about how you can get your minister's certification online--now hold them to it. Otherwise, they lose face. No one wants to lose face, especially when it comes to something having to do with the Internet.

7. Select and order a wedding dress and fitting. One word: Bedazzler. Anything already in the bride's closet (including dresses previously worn at Senior Prom, as a bridesmaid, or from first wedding) can be made aisle-ready with a few sequins.

8. Select and order clothing for the wedding party. Tell the bridesmaids you're experimenting with the new "pot-luck" fad going around the wedding industry. This is where each girl brings a dress and then draws names to swap it with another bridesmaid (regardless of the fact that it might not fit or smells faintly of a conflicting perfume) and everyone looks in the mirror and laughs together, having a great time and bonding as sisters. Or you could buy matching sweat-suits like Britney Spears does every year.

9. Select and buy attire for the flower girl and ring bearer. It doesn't matter what their attire is, people at weddings are usually in enough of a sentimental mood to think little kids are cute, even if said kids are wiping snot on each other and shitting themselves. The important thing is to pick a little girl with enough brains and fine motor skills to complete the simple task of throwing four to eight cups of freeze-dried rose petals from a basket without somehow fucking it up, and making sure the ring-bearer isn't some greedy little prick who's gonna skip out mid-ceremony when he realizes he's been entrusted with an $8,000 diamond.

10. Select and buy attire for the both the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom. If two grown women can't be bothered to pick out their own outfits for their child's wedding, maybe they should just stay home that day. The modern problem you're likely to face is which of your many mothers to pick as the #1. You probably have only one true maternal, but what about your various step-mothers? Should you pick one of dad's favorite hookers as shown on his credit card bill? Maybe you grew up with a pair of lesbian common-law wives and relate to both of them as mom. Do you think of a particular female psychiatrist as a parental figure? Or perhaps, like me, you were raised by a pack of adoptive female wolves in the northern Minnesota wilderness. The answer to who gets the nod is obvious: whichever one will admit to being related to you, and be recognized as such in public.

Next: Part 2