What a great idea! (Or is it?)

This morning I was watching my favorite morning show on television and a commercial came on that immediately caught my eye (and ear) because it was funny -- and making me smile before caffeine? Not easy -- but also because the business name was so cute: Smarty Had a Party.com. I was interested because you see that china plate and the silver flatware in that picture above? Well, it's not china and that's not silver. They're plastic. But apparently, they're a heavy-duty weighty AND DISPOSABLE plastic that can be tossed into a recycling bin and be done with.

Since my husband and I have two daughters who are getting older every day, I sometimes wonder about future weddings and if paying for them will have us sharing the dogs' kibble every morning for breakfast, so I have to say, I think this is a brilliant idea. Oh, sure, don't get me wrong: My preference would be to have a gorgeous, professionally catered reception EVENT WITH A CAPITAL E at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where the girls and I have spent so many happy hours over the last ten years, but check out those prices! At the museum, we be most likely be able to afford to buy every guest a Happy Meal with Chicken McNuggets and their choice of soft drink, which we could eat while furtively gathered in the museum's underground parking garage, which I don't think is quite de rigeur. So maybe we should consider a happy gathering in the parish hall, or maybe at the Knights of Columbus.

It sure would be a lot less expensive to get guestware from a place like Smarty Had a Party than it would be to rent the real thing. Maybe if one buys the plastic ware, a little more money could be put into the food? Or the champagne? Or the deejay? You would definitely not want a cut-rate deejay who would horrify the guests by playing the greatest hits of Barry Manilow, Air Supply and Debby Boone.

Or maybe it's all just dreadfully tacky? I don't know. What do you think?