You are currently browsing the archives for August, 2007

You Can’t Afford to be Average!

  • August 18, 2007 at 12:52 pm

More than 1/3 of couples getting married in the United States pay for their own weddings. Even more couples in the U.S. pay for at least a portion of their wedding expenses.

If you are a bride or groom reading this article, then you are probably one of the couples who are paying for or at least helping to pay for their own wedding.

Even as more couples get involved in planning for and paying for their dream weddings, the wedding price tag continues to grow more forboding. In the year 2007, according to CostOfWedding.com, the average U.S. wedding cost was $28,800. This figure is expected to steadily rise in years to come.

Today’s bride and groom have become so desensitized to the incredible expense of planning a wedding that they hardly stop to think about how much money that really is. Let’s take a moment to put that $28,800 price tag in perspective and look at a couple ways to make your wedding more affordable.

First, let’s consider that $28,800 is more than most brides or grooms bring home from work in a year.

Now, suppose a couple wants to save up for their wedding so they don’t go into debt. If they are saving for a $28,800 wedding, they should consider how much they should feed their wedding savings piggy bank each month. If they can only afford to save, say, $300 per month, they should plan on saving for a full 8 years ($300 x 96 months [that's 8 years]=$28,800). What engaged couple is willing to wait 8 years to get married?

We haven’t even considered that it takes considerable discipline to save $300 each month. Some might need to wait longer as they can only save $150 a month or even less.

Most couples choose to get married within a year or two of their engagement. If they are paying for their own wedding as more than 1/3 of couples do, they often plan their expensive wedding courtesy Visa or Mastercard. That saves them the trouble of budgeting and saving for all those years before marriage. Instead of saving before marriage for their wedding day, they spend those delicate first years of marriage after the wedding day struggling with debt and living uncomfortably frugal lives together. Their credit card company keeps them under its thumb for years as interest piles up on interest and the poor couple barely scrapes by.

We wish that we were exaggerating here but all too often this is the scenario in which young couples find themselves. All so they could glory in one splendid day marking the beginning of their marriage. Hoping that somehow the perfection of the wedding day would somehow rub off on each succeeding day of marriage, the couple had poured a year’s salary into that big day. The reality is that the expense of that wedding day is paid for day after day of their married lives and they realize all too late that financial stress is the number one killer of marriages.

Americans with their individualistic attitudes tend to believe that they are special and that the rules do not apply to them. Likewise, couples planning their weddings tend to think that they will be the exception. That they will somehow spend less than most spend or that they will somehow be able to pay their credit cards off later without much problem.

Well, if you are not careful, you will soon discover that you are not exempt from the norms and that you are all too average. You will discover yourself in a quagmire of financial stress and marital disharmony day after day for years all for the sake of a wedding that was bought at a much too high of a price – we regret to say that it could even cost you your marriage.

What should you do? Stop being average. Stop planning your wedding the way most young brides and grooms plan their weddings.

Set a realistic spending allowance for your wedding – a spending allowance that you and your lover can live with. Go into your wedding planning with your eyes wide open.

You really can have a wonderful wedding day on whatever price you are able to pay – whether that be $5,000 or just $500. You would be amazed at how far that money can go when you are committed to planning your dream wedding on your chosen budget.

We were personally willing to spend no more than $2,000 for our wedding. We worked out a strategy that allowed us to stay under budget while planning a very memorable and special wedding day that is on par with any other wedding we have attended.

We have written a wedding planner to guide you in your wedding planning. In the wedding planner, we guide you in creating a reasonable wedding budget and show you step by step just what you need to do to see your dream wedding come true while staying under budget.

You can’t afford to be average. Instead, be amazing!

Wedding Planning on a Budget is available as an instant download which can be read on your computer or printed at your convenience. To get your copy of this powerful wedding planning guide visit the Wedding Planner Download Page

We wish you the best and hope that you have an amazing wedding and a wonderful marriage together for the rest of your lives.

Contributed by Wedding Planning on a Budget

One Stop Wedding Planner Gallery

  • August 15, 2007 at 4:51 am

A wonderful new concept for brides has just burst forth from the horizon: The one stop wedding planner gallery.

You sit down with the consultant while sipping tea on the sofa and she helps you choose the best wedding professionals to help you with every aspect of your wedding from the selection of the venue to the photographer and the officiant. The consultant knows the local wedding professionals who can be counted on to provide you excellent service in your budget range.

She is essentially a middleman for the bride and the wedding professionals. You get the chance to view the work done by each wedding professional being considered without the hassle of running from one meeting to another. That way you can make the best choice and essentially interview each wedding professional all in one sitting in the course of one pleasant conversation. You also avoid having to deal with wedding professionals pushing themselves on you. You get to choose them or choose another vendor and they do not need to ever know.

The wedding planner gallery makes an otherwise stressful affair a simple, truly enjoyable, and comfortable time sitting on the sofa viewing slideshows and samples of what various wedding professionals can offer.

Planning a wedding should be fun and working with just the right wedding professionals and vendors is the key to making the wedding planning an enjoyable, rewarding experience.

Wedding galleries as described here are a new concept. We expect this wonderful concept to catch on quickly as excellent ideas usually do. To learn more about the wedding gallery that inspired this blog entry visit Wedding Gallery of San Luis Obispo or an article recently written about that gallery.

Contributed by Wedding Planning on a Budget

Cost of Wedding in Korea

  • August 5, 2007 at 2:47 am

Since we are now living in South Korea, we thought we would dedicate a blog to Korean weddings.

We have only been here for a little more than a month so we dare not claim to be experts but will share some interesting information we have uncovered.

The Korean traditional wedding ceremony is particularly beautiful. To help you get a sense of the color, dance, and romance found in a traditional Korean wedding, we will share three videos with you. Two are videos of fantastic processional dances and the last one is a slideshow showing the bride and groom during the actual ceremony.

The website www.hec.ohio-state.edu offers the following helpful explanation about Korean wedding costumes:

“Traditional Korean bridal dress is based on the costume of royal princesses. The red skirt and yellow jacket are worn over full pantaloons and a long slip, and under a red robe with wide rainbow stripe sleeves. The headdress consists of a beaded crown with a dragon head pin in lacquered hair.

The groom wears a royal blue robe of a style worn by officials in dynastic times, with a stiff black hat asociated with scholar’s or officials. A western style shirt and tie are worn under the robe.

Traditional Korean weddings and wedding dress fell out of favor during Korea’s rapid industrial growth and emergence onto the world marketplace in the 1970s and 1980s. In their place was a modern, new style wedding with Korean vernacular language, and western style dress. Many ceremonies today feature both traditional and modern forms of dress.”

According to an article discussing the costs of South Korean weddings (see the full article ), the average cost of the South Korean wedding is 36.2 million won (that translates to over $39,000 US Dollars).

It seems that there have been calls to lower the cumbersome cost of weddings in Korea but we expect change to be slow here in Korea just as it is in the U.S. Tradition along with the desire to have the best celebration possible while impressing relatives and friends as much as possible will all work together to encourage families and couples to pour their money into their wedding ceremonies.

Brides in America as in other places all over the world, have an expectation that if they can make their wedding day perfect then that perfection and romantic atmosphere of their wedding day will somehow flow over into the rest of their married life.

Now, in America and South Korea, couples are getting married later in life (South Koreans on average now marry at approximately age 30). In America, the later age for marriage has meant less parental spending and more money conscious brides and grooms. We will have to see if that will be the result in Korea too.

More can be learned about South Korean marriage at Wikepedia.

Contributed by Wedding Planning on a Budget