Wedding Koozies

Wedding Reception Planning Advice

I remember when watching my wedding reception being planned seven years ago. The sheer excitement of starting a life with my wife-to-be overshadowed just about everything else in my life at the time.
Advice and suggestions poured in from family, in-laws, friends, magazines, talk shows, and the ‘net...smart people helping on everything from choosing a dress to booking a reception hall to what Koozie design to choose. But now that it’s all over and I’m well on the other side of my wedding day, I’ve come to know a few things I wish someone had told me when I was still in the planning stage. Lucky for you, dear spouse-to-be, I am here to let you in on a few things people just don’t tell you. This is good stuff. So pay attention!! :)
Lets assume you are not planning to go to City Hall for a 15-minute ceremony, you’re going to be looking at spending some serious money. I’ll tell you right off the bat the money was well worth it. Of course you want your wedding to be beautiful and special, but it just doesn’t make sense to break the bank. And there are definitely some aspects of the wedding more worthy of your money than others.
Take the wedding dress, for example. In the summer of 1998, my fiancees dress cost a thousand dollars. When I consider that nowadays, I have to wonder what the heck I was thinking. That dress was worn for maybe ten hours. That’s a hundred dollars an hour! Yes, yes, I know – we’re talking about a once-in-a-lifetime event. But that money could have gone toward the down payment on the house we bought three months after our wedding.
At any rate I’d rather have spent extra money on photography – at least you look at your pictures for years afterwards. Or on the reception, where you’re throwing a big, fun party for your friends and family – at least they’ll all appreciate it. The dress, though, just sits there in a closet forevermore.
I am sure there are those that will disagree with me. Too practical, not romantic enough? I certainly would have thought so when the planning was going on. That’s why you desperately need to listen! You see, only those this side of matrimony can think clearly about such things as whether to fill the hall with nine hundred dollars worth of flowers that’ll be dead in a week.
Okay, so I’m maybe being just a little facetious. All I’m saying, really, is be smart about the spending – whether it’s your money or someone else’s. And if you spend half as much attention planning your marriage as most brides do their weddings, you’ll have a much better chance of success at both. Think of the items that you will have and see for a long time.

posted by Bob Liddle @ 5:37 PM