Weddings from Wealthy to Walmart

HOUSTON - Strap in for wedding whiplash. We’re about to take you from a million-dollar wedding cake to the halls of Walmart, in search of the perfect “I do.”

If it’s “one for the money,” this cake ought to do the job. Six layers draped with gold and drizzled with diamonds, designed by Nadine Moon of “Who Made the Cake?”

“We get a lot of brides that ask for bling on their cake,” says Moon. “But this is taking it to the max. This takes the cake."

You can have this cake, and eat it too (if only it were edible) for about $1.4 million.

The precious gems are provided by Select Jewelers, where the newly-betrothed will find Ray Carpenter behind the counter.

“When a bride comes in and has that look in her eye,” says Carpenter, “and the groom is looking at her with that look in his eye, it's a very special time for the both of them.”

But this particular million-dollar cake isn’t headed for any reception.

It’s bound for the Bridal Extravaganza Show at the George R. Brown Convention Center, all weekend.

And it’s transported by (what else?) an armored limousine whose owner’s greatest fear is being cut-off by one of those famous Houston drivers. Although revenge would be sweet—and instantaneous.

“That guy that pulls out,” vows Milton Davis, “his SUV becomes a Toyota.”

With the recession in our rear-view mirror, the wedding industry is perking back up, says Laurette Veres, producer of the Bridal Extravaganza.

“The average wedding in Houston is about 34-thousand dollars,” says Veres. “And that can sound high but think, you know, it's an average.”

“Oh my word!” responds Emily Earnest, who was wed in 2001. “My total wedding was 35-hundred dollars so that's—and reception—I could not imagine!”

Earnest and her husband Gene had the ultimate Walmart wedding. They said their vows in the Garden Center of the Walmart Supercenter in Pasadena, the scene of much of their courtship.

When the bride walked down the aisle, it was still stacked with merchandise.

“I remember, I had to wait in that corner, right over there,” recalls Gene. “Like, when's this gonna start?”

“And I was hiding in the fertilizer,” adds Emily.

Nine years and two daughters later, they still stride through life’s sliding doors, together…always.

And Emily Earnest says she wouldn’t change a thing—except maybe for Houston’s heat.

“If I'd have had 35-thousand dollars, I still would have done it at Walmart.”

And that’s really what it’s all about, says Veres.

“Pick and choose the things you like, and have them,” says the Bridal Extravaganza producer. “And everything else, yes, downscale if that's what you need to do.”

For more information on this weekend’s Bridal Extravaganza Show, click here:

http://www.bridalextravaganzashow.com/