There is no sacrifice too great to assure that your wedding does not deviate from our perfect template.
Published by Kyso Kisaen June 9th, 2006 in Wedding-big mistake or bad idea?So I’m thinking about possibly starting to consider maybe looking into planning a wedding, with the optimistic date of Springish, 2008 in mind. The instant I made that quasi-commitment, I began to release some sort of pheromone that was instantly picked up by the wedding industry. Or maybe it’s just because it’s spring and my mom convinced me to sign up for that “free” (by mail, for, uh, no reason) bridal planner that was offered by her newspaper. Either way, I feel surrounded by wedding paraphenalia like it’s all speaking directly to me.
The waves upon waves of ultruistic helpfulness wouldn’t be so bad if the wedding-industrial complex spewed forth something other than crap once in awhile. And today, while fucking around at work, I happened upon MSN’s Super Happy Page of Lame Advice and Audacious Assumptions. They just called it “Weddings with The Knot” which is not at all as cool.
It starts with 41 wedding budget tips, starting with the assumption that you are a moron.
You’ve been walking on cloud nine since your engagement day. But after the first few weeks of wedding-planning research, reality sets in: You recognize that a budget must be made.
It took a few weeks to figure out that you’d need a budget? Maybe you should wait until you graduate high school before you start planning the wedding, or let you mom do it.
The advice is pretty standard: no guests, no booze, no food. For starters, did you know that replacing the mandatory oyster appetiser with cheese and crackers could save you $600 assuming 200 guests? Thank God MSN told me that. And if I can skimp on oysters, I can probably cheap out on the caviar, too! Maybe serve it on Ritz crackers or something.
Of course, I’m going to have to find 200 people to invite in order to realize those savings, so I guess I’d best get networking.
2. Cut Your Guest List
It’s the dreaded dirty deed, but it must be done: Your guest list is the first thing to trim. Never assume a certain percentage of invitees won’t attend. Remember, cutting just 10 guests at $100 a head saves you $1,000.
Or I won’t invite 200 people, I’ll invite 190 and save only $560 on oysters. Damn, this budgeting thing is hard. I admit, you have to draw the line somewhere (for example, my sister’s best childhood friend invited my sister but not me to her wedding, which she felt compelled to apologise for even though it was an utterly reasonable action. Maybe this piece of advice is for people in that situation) but they’re making it sound like if it’s between Great-Aunt Ethel and the table centerpieces of your dreams, well, Aunt Ethel is old and probably wouldn’t add anything to the day anyway.
Skip the envelope for the reply card by using a reply postcard, or simply have guests reply on their own stationery. Better yet, ask guests to email their RSVPs.
I think both Abby and Prudence would have something to say about using email for wedding RSVPs. But I’ve got a better idea, I’ll skip the invitations entirely and just Facebook everyone. Well, that saved me a trip to Kinkos.
30. One-Man Band
Find a DJ who is willing to work alone, and leave the emcee duties to the best man.31. Minimize Musicians
If you have your heart set on a band, ask if you can eliminate a player or two. For example, cutting a guitar player from a swing band can save over $400.
Um, why wouldn’t your DJ work alone? Is your wedding themed like a seventh grade dance and you need someone to organize games to get the boys and girls to dance together? And what kind of Bridezilla would you have to be to pick out a band and then ask if they really needed all of those members? Get a DJ. Find a precocious high school aged one if you need to save $400 that badly.
36. No Frills Video
Ask if your videographer will do a scaled-back package for less money, and eliminate special effects or extra editing.
It would be revolutionary to suggest not having a videographer at all, wouldn’t it?
But remember, you’re saving all this money so that you can spend it where it counts. On the bridal industry, of course.
GET HELP
37. Consultants Cut Costs
Hire a wedding consultant. You will undoubtedly recoup his or her fee with the sound advice he or she can provide about getting more or better service for your money.
So, that wasn’t a helpful article. For starters, there is no way, not a chance in hell, that I can skip the open bar. No. My family celebrates few weddings, but the ones we have features an unbroken tradition of free-flowing booze and I can’t be the one to break that. I’ll just have to count the fact that everyone in my family is old and diseased, and therefore able to drink less than they could 10 or even 5 years ago, as my savings.
All the article did was expose a whole bunch of wedding-related assumptions about things that hadn’t even occured to me (cocktail hour? Limos? 10 bridesmaids? Um, no thanks). I can’t save money I things I didn’t intend to spend it on in the first place. I’ll have to turn to their featured Wedding of the Week to see how this couple pulled it off. Maybe they can inspire me. They sound pretty cool and low-key.
Even though Kathryn McCarthy and Chad Maguire are sports fans (Super Bowl Sunday is their dating anniversary), they aren’t sprinters. But planning their destination wedding in six months “felt like running a 100-yard dash,” Kathryn says.
Six months? Destination? They must have done what my roommate’s sister did, which is run off and get married in Hawaii so that they could avoid having to invite relatives they don’t particularly like. It’s a good idea.
Cool New England waters, traditional monogramming, and a soft, beachy lilac inspired every exquisite accent. The invitations boasted a lilac interlocking CK emblem –as did the programs, menus, and place cards. For the ceremony, two wreaths made from lavender hydrangeas hung outside the white doors of the hilltop church.
Wearing knee-length lilac dresses with an ivory organza sash, seven bridesmaids carried bouquets of blue, lilac, lavender, and white hydrangeas. Lilac stone bracelets resembling sea glass, given to them by the bride, completed the look. The groomsmen sported a little more local flair: Chad, a telecom salesman, picked up cuff links engraved with the letters ACK, the island’s airport code.
An undeniably Cape Cod cocktail hour featured an antique wooden canoe filled with trays of littlenecks, oysters, and shrimp on ice. Those seeking libations flocked to the martini glass-shaped ice sculpture filled with blushing pink cosmopolitans.
Nevermind, they’re just here to make me feel like I should spend more. Maybe if I snub Aunt Ethel and everyone in the fiance’s family, I could afford the seafood and the monograms. And cufflinks with Akron’s airport code on them. Ro-man-tic Rubber City!
The elements all came together again in the chocolate with raspberry-cream wedding cake. Hundreds of fresh lilac hydrangeas separated each of the four tiers — the middle adorned with the cursive CK logo in white frosting.
Oh, but don’t feel bad if you’re serving sheet cake or cupcakes at your wedding. It doesn’t make you less of a person, it just means Chad and Kathy are better than you. You could improvise-like, my dad’s friend has this aluminum canoe that’s only a little sheezy. You could fill that with ice and put shrimp in it. We’ll put like ribbons on it or something. The bridesmaids will do it. That’s what they’re there for. You should also tell one of them to start gardening, because you’re going to need some embellishments for your cupcakes.
You should also not feel stressed out that because you cut dates from the guest list, your single friends aren’t having any fun at all.
As awkward as it is to attend a wedding with someone you’ve only just started seeing — there’s nothing like accidentally catching a bouquet to accelerate the normal relationship timetable by, say, two or three years — going to a reception all by your lonesome self is even worse. This prospect is so daunting, in fact, that most singles fall back on one of three strategies: a) taking along a brother or sister (or a platonic friend of the opposite sex) and hoping no one asks any questions; b) sadly nursing a triple scotch in the lounge while all the happy couples are out on the floor slow-dancing; or c) invoking the “family emergency” rule and not showing up at all.
You stingy bitch, if you’d had that open bar and full waitstaff, your single friends could have at least gotten liquored up and danced with each other, then fucked the waiters in the bathroom. Now they’re forced to skip your wedding. At least it saved you some money. Everyone wins!
Jesus, it’s a wonder anyone ever has a traditional wedding at all. I’m going to need to keep reading all of this conflicting advice. It’ll make it that much easier to just go ahead and do whatever I damn well please. You think it would be worth it to hire a wedding consultant just to fire her after a week? I’ll have to check my budget, because that might be fun.
Last wedding I attended blew. I was invited last-minute by a friend who wasn’t really a friend anymore, who sat me and my girlfriend across the table from my ex. It was a wildly uncomfortable night that consisted of me getting drunk and making out with the girlfriend in the parking lot before ditching the reception in favor of a bar. I later spent the entire night kneeling over the toilet after shots at a bar. The friend’s was, for the record, a “picture perfect” wedding. They even danced to goddamn Van Morrison, which was a deal breaker for yours truly. No wonder we weren’t friends anymore.
Now, you see, that’s just the sort of thing I’m trying to avoid, and none of the $50 wedding planning books at Borders covers important topics like that. How do I keep my cooler friends from ditching my reception? How do I invite old friends without them accidentally alerting my insane ex (who was last spotted telling a mutual friends that I left him for someone with whom my relationship is “not serious, like it was with [him]“)?
I already know shit like “less booze = less money” or “borrow stuff or make it, teehee!” Any dumbass knows that skipping a 4-tier cake-orgy in favor of a simpler cake is a cost-saver.
What I need to know is stuff like “How sanitary would it be to have an ice sculpture the guests can do shots from?” or “Do I need to get seperate insurance against the damange my drunken guests will assuredly do to your building?”
It is also of course important to not let your allegiance to the “perfect wedding” turn you into a complete Van Morrison dancing douchebag. I need a checklist of symptoms just in case it starts to happen to me! Some signs for the fiance to look for so that he knows to intervene before it’s too late and I’m making him wear a cummerbund and pose for “engagement pictures.”
Regarding the DJ:
1. Your DJ had better work alone.
2. I’ve been that DJ that works alone (as a precocious high school, no less), and I would and still could (if it was worth my time) emcee with the best of them, so um, fuck yeah!
3. You’re better off looking for someone who’ll leave the theater production equipment at home. People with lights and fog machines and a van with cutesy lettering on the side are covering up for their ineptitude. It’s like a Ford Econoline-sized concealer stick. Two turntables and a microphone should be all nearly any decent emcee needs.
Regarding “Oh, but don’t feel bad if you’re serving sheet cake or cupcakes at your wedding. It doesn’t make you less of a person, it just means Chad and Kathy are better than you.”:
Mmmhmm. And Chad and Kathy also ditched the amateur DJ in favor of a band. A real jazz band. With a goddamned guitar, too.
God, I hate Chad and Kathy!
a Ford Econoline-sized concealer stick
I hate Chad and Kathy too.
Insulting advice from the nuptio-industrial complex and well-meaning but equally useless advice from friends and family is the worst part.
“Fuck it,” we finally said, and had 40 guests over to my parents house on a Sunday afternoon. It was nice and intimate, and we had a true reception about a month later (with tons of booze).
Ultimately, it works when you can decide on a setting and atmostphere that speaks to who you (and the fiance) are. Sounds like you have enough time to explore all your options.
Oh, my God, Chuck you just reminded me of my favorite wedding story. I used to have a summer job in the A/V department of a local amusement park. When my supervisor got married, he got all kinds of free videography and equipment loans and stuff from the park. The other summer employees went nuts, presuading the bride (another coworker) to let them have carte blance on dance floor decorating. So they end up in a VFW hall with a DJ with speakers taller than he was, two lasers, a fog machine and a bubble machine. They fogged out the wedding dance so the videographer and photographer couldn’t get a damn shot, the bubbles made the dance floor slippery and the laser had a loose mirror casing, so the vibrations from the speakers fucked up the alignment, causing them to hit the mirror that was the back wall and bounce everywhere-and they were way too strong to let them hit your eyes. It was a Boys with Toys catastrophe, but everyone had a pretty good time.
the commiseration:
the bridal industry is fucking insane. The whole thing is terrifying in its scope.
the (somewhat) uninvited advice:
indiebride.com. the folks on the message borads kept me sane through our commitment celebration, and kept the good ideas and advice flowing.