The Day We Threw Ourselves A Parade

In New Orleans, you can hire a parade for about $1,500 - permits, police escort, second line brass band, and even a Grand Marshal to lead the way. They take care of everything.

For our wedding weekend, we decided to do exactly that.

When my husband first floated the idea, I didn’t even know what to picture. I’d never been in a parade before - certainly not one just for me. But New Orleans has a way of turning impossible ideas into “why not?” plans, and before I knew it, we had our date, our route, and a band on the books.

The afternoon of the parade, we gathered at Jackson Square by the river with our kids, our dog, and about fifteen friends. My friend April rolled up in massive purple butterfly wings, walking on stilts like a Mardi Gras dream come to life. She’d also rented this oversized tricycle with a full triceratops skeleton attached, so it looked like you were riding it. The trike blew a constant stream of bubbles over us as we moved - they caught the sunlight, drifting above our heads like shimmering glass confetti.

We were all dressed in outrageous rainbow and purple outfits. The band was fantastic - bright, brassy, and unstoppable - and the Grand Marshal made sure we didn’t just walk from place to place. At every intersection, he stopped us, dancing us in circles, hyping up the gathering crowds. People leaned out of doorways to wave, lifted their phones to film, and shouted congratulations from balconies.

The police stopped traffic so we could start our trek, then escorted us the whole way to Bourbon Street. Every block, the music bounced off the walls and pulled more people into the orbit. For 45 minutes, the French Quarter became our personal movie set. And through it all, our dog Ollie - a miniature wiener dog with the swagger of a rock star - strutted like the entire thing was arranged for him.

We ended the parade not with a big meal or grand speech, but with the feeling we’d just done something wildly, joyfully unnecessary - the kind of thing that makes life worth the hassle.

And we didn’t stop there. The celebration stretched all weekend, anchored by a three-story rental where nearly everyone stayed, dorm-style. We had a karaoke night that left everyone hoarse from singing and laughing. At the reception, April - always in full party mode - jumped into the pool mid-song, shocking no one and delighting everyone. We even set up a photo booth for snapshots that got sillier as the night went on.

Our amazing wedding band of choice, Haley and The Crushers - whose genre is literally poolside glitter trash - played a set beside the pool, the music bouncing between the courtyard walls as the sky went deep indigo. Later, we wandered the Quarter with the otherworldly cellist, Unwoman, and ended up spending an evening listening to her play for a rapt audience from all over the world. Strangers and friends alike sat spellbound, the music curling through the air like something ancient and electric at the same time.

By the time it was over, the whole weekend felt like a collage of moments - brassy, glittering, loud, intimate, surreal. When my husband first said, “Let’s have a parade,” I couldn’t imagine what that meant. Now, I can’t imagine our wedding without it. We didn’t wait for life to hand us a reason to celebrate. We made our own - and we filled it to the brim.