Trends and Entertainment

Love on the Cheap

For Valentine’s Day this year, Jason Rodriguez and his fiancée, Robin, are going to eat cake.

When the couple ties the knot in Massachusetts in June, they will have been together ten years. Some might say their timing couldn’t have been worse.

But at least for this month, the timing is just right; the happy couple is using their wedding as fuel for an extra romantic Valentine’s Day.

“Robin and I are doing wedding cake tastings on Valentine’s Day. It’s free and romantic except, of course, we need to buy a cake after we’re done,” says Rodriguez.

As a bride-to-be myself, I have to admit: this Valentine’s Day highlights the bittersweet experience of planning a wedding during a recession. How’s a girl to reconcile layoffs, foreclosures and crashes with bouquets, gowns and fake lashes? I never fully bought into the fairy-tale wedding fantasy thing but, still, talk about a burst bubble.

I’m a freelancer and my fiancé is unemployed so we have very simple plans for Feb. 14: a meeting with our caterer to discuss the wedding menu, then a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with its suggested donation) to catch Art and Love in Renaissance Italy before it closes. If the economy weren’t on life support, I imagine we would do something a bit more indulgent to commemorate our engagement (like a couples’ massage followed by dinner, drinks and live music).

It turns out I’m not the only one paring back this year. I polled some Facebook friends to find out what they were doing differently and discovered that a lot of people are staying close to home and finding unique ways to celebrate. Even the library is looking hot (my fiancé and I just got cards – hello free movies). With many couples finding themselves with an income (or two) less, or their job prospects dwindling, this year’s Valentine’s Day is set against a more somber backdrop.

Last year, Tara Shaffer, a PR professional in San Diego, celebrated by going out on the town, but this year, “My boyfriend Chris and I are lucky enough to live in a place where we have amazing weather in February, so we plan on riding our bikes down on Coronado Island and packing a picnic to enjoy on the beach.”

Lauren Gonzalez, a married writer currently living in Brooklyn but about to skip town for a more affordable address upstate, will be satisfying her wanderlust with a NYC staycation. “We’ll probably pick a neighborhood in New York we rarely go to and take photos. Maybe we’ll have a cheap lunch there, too.”

An IT professional in New York City, Cheroc Lawless sums up this year’s vibe perfectly, “Cliff and I don’t even have plans yet, which is so not like us! We always have something in the works for Valentine’s. I’m guessing we’ll make a nice dinner at home with the candles lit, drinking wine and listening to some good music together.”

It’s love that counts, right? But still, it’s a short while since last year’s boomy times of more lavish celebrations, so I asked Anne Chertoff, senior editor at Brides.com, for a pick-me-up. She suggests that couples enjoy the usual dinner and a movie—at home—or write a simple love letter. “As a chocaholic,” she added, “I can’t imagine not enjoying something sweet on the 14th. You don’t have to splurge on a $100 box of truffles. Why not make a chocolate cake, brownies or cupcakes from a mix? Betty Crocker and Dunkin Hines have a large selection of cake and frosting flavors to choose from and it will cost less than $10 to make a dessert for your sweetheart.”

Crave truffles? Buy Betty Crocker. Love long-stem roses? Learn to love carnations. Prefer a bottle of red with dinner? Try happy hour and the bar menu instead. Yep, even Valentine’s Day is getting downsized.

Stella Fiore is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared on DailyCandy.com and iVillage.com, among others.

Tags: relationships