Wedding Planning For Men

Wish Breakdown: Bride and Groom vs Guest

Some people feel that their weddings are a way to express themselves and in many ways “force” their views on others.  For example, a couple that is vegetarian or vegan may choose to not offer meat as a meal choice and, in the process, subject everyone at the wedding to their dietary practices whether their guests like it or not.  Likewise, someone who is not a sports fan is unlikely to check the…

A Breakdown of the Absurd Cost of Wedding Dishes

As wedding season approaches, the save-the-dates and the wedding invitations begin to trickle in.  As someone who is constantly working to find new and interesting things to write about in the relatively unchanging world of weddings, I like to investigate the venues that people choose for their weddings.  In doing so, I often uncover information about the cost of food and the venue itself that…

Confirming a hypothesis: A wedding photographer is a waste of money

My wife and I got married in early May of 2015.  Approximately a year later, we (actually, my wife did) go around to posting the pictures of Facebook.  Like many couples, we received the thumb drive with our pictures a few weeks after the wedding and took it to Walgreens to print out pictures of various sizes.  The post-wedding “positivity” combined with the fact that everything was being printed…

The Under $10,000 Wedding: Wedding dress budget

The terms “budget” and “wedding dress” are almost contradictions.  The traditional stance on wedding dresses is that it is the bride’s day and that the wedding dress should be whatever she wants.  With this type of enabling and money-be-damned attitude, it is very easy to see how a wedding dress budget can become an afterthought or a slight inconvenience that can be explained away later. …

The Under $10,000 Wedding: Food choices

Selecting the right food choices is a key part in ensuring that your wedding does not go over budget.  In short, choose the cheapest options.  With that said, there is an art to choosing the cheapest, or at least the cheaper, option.  Depending on the food choices, some items can seem obviously cheap.  These are the choices that you want to avoid.  For example, spaghetti can come off as a cheaper…

The Under $10,000 Wedding: Limiting guests

Limiting guests is a critical part to keeping costs under $10,000.  Sometimes, painful wedding guest “cuts” must be made, but they will be worth it.  One of the most important factors in limiting guests is keeping the wedding quiet and ensuring that news of the wedding doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, also known as those who will require you to invite a group of people to ensure that there will…

Yes You Can: Make your $10,000 wedding seem like it was much more

Perception is key for a wedding.  It doesn’t matter how much you actually spent; what matters is that your guests think that you spent a lot.  The wedding industry pushes the fact that you should spend a lot of money on your wedding, however, you can use smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of significant wedding expenses.  Do not accept the prevalent notion that weddings, at least good,…

Yes You Can: Have a profitable wedding

I believe that if you are truly honest with yourself, the concept of spending a lot of your own or someone else’s money on your wedding is hard to accept.  Blowing what could be the down payment on a house in a single night is the antithesis financial responsibility.  If you lost that amount of money at a casino in a single night, you would be called an addict, a loser, and a whole host of other…

The Evil Mindset Behind a Destination Wedding

First and foremost, a destination wedding is almost a guarantee that a wedding will not be profitable. There is no bargaining power and there is no way to save money on anything. However, outside of the cost associated with throwing the wedding, there is an incredibly selfish mindset associated with this type of event. Your wedding is your day. This is a well-known fact. However, by inviting…

Why you should strive to have a profitable wedding

When my wife and I first embarked on our journey to have a profitable wedding, we endured a gauntlet of reactions that ranged from support, skepticism, and outright mocking. For the most part, family members supported the mindset, but did so with cautious optimism. Kind of like the way that parents look at their child who is insisting that he or she will one day be president. They don’t…

The under $10,000 wedding: Choosing a venue

The goal of having a wedding that doesn’t cost a lot, but seems like it costs a lot, is largely based on the venue.  Many people have been to weddings that are in an obviously cheap location like someone’s backyard.  I, personally, have been to a wedding that took place in a barn (which is pretty much someone’s backyard) and used bales of hay as seats.  It was itchiest and most uncomfortable…

Yes You Can: Have a wedding for under $10,000

The under $10,000 wedding is the “holy grail” of having a wedding on a budget.  It is possible and it isn’t that difficult to pull off once you figure out how to properly balance the perception of your wedding and the costs to create that perception. The following weeks will detail how to pull off a $10,000 wedding and how to make it seem like it was far more than $10,000.  It is not a myth, it…

Regardless of how much you spend, your wedding will end at 10:30pm

As a general rule, everyone has probably attended multiple weddings prior to getting married themselves.  Depending on your friends and family, the weddings have probably varied in location, expense, and fanciness/classiness.  However, regardless of the expense, wedding receptions in the evening almost always begin to empty out at about 10:30pm.  Parents, co-workers, and the older crowd tend to…

Showing Up to a Wedding Isn’t Something to Brag About

It is truly astonishing what some wedding vendors believe will get them customers.  One phrase that was heard all too often was “In ____(number of years in business), we have never missing a wedding.”  The fact that this statement is ever uttered aloud says a lot about the company and the wedding industry in general.  Showing up to work is not something to brag about.  When asking your boss for a…

Be Aware of the Wedding Multiplier

With little exception, everything at a wedding gets multiplied.  Wedding prices are always inflated so, in a sense, the first multiplier begins with the initial prices.  For example, there is no reason for a bride’s dress to cost 4, 5, or even 6 digits, but somehow this has become accepted, even embraced.  The second multiplier involves the number of guests and the items that need to be…

If it’s there, people will buy it – alcohol

Weddings and alcohol are almost synonymous.  Perhaps because the alcohol is free and, therefore, memorable, or because weddings themselves are inherently uninteresting so alcohol is needed to provide greater entertainment and enjoyment.  Twitter hashtags about weddings such as “#ruinaweddingin5words” often result in many tweets about how terrible a wedding would be without free alcohol.  However,…