Another Fucking Wedding

The NYT's odd promotion of wedding planners

Today's New York Times had an article that seemed right up our alley: planning a wedding on a budget. People (like us) looking to make their wedding affordable in the face of cultural pressure, high prices and escalating expectations. And how does the New York Times solve the conundrum? A wedding planner.

It isn't that the New York Times didn't recognize the issue, they just don't acknowledge it:

Carley Roney, co-founder of TheKnot.com, which helps brides-to-be plan their weddings, says she doesn’t think so. “You give them a budget, and their job is to make the wedding happen in that budget,” she said. “By not overspending, they can save thousands of dollars.”

See, that's probably true. But if you are considering the category of things that a wedding planner can save you "thousands of dollars" on for your wedding, you are not having a wedding on a budget. You are having a wedding with a budget. The only mention of a person who is actually doing a wedding on a budget makes no mention at all of having a wedding planner involved.

But what really got me was this quote from a wedding planner:

Ms. Seccuro said she would never forget one couple who, when it was time to register for gifts, “actually sent blueprints of a house they were building upstate to all the wedding guests, inviting them to ‘buy’ a door, a window, the kitchen floors, an appliance.” They “wanted their guests to pay for their house,” she said. “They remain to this date the only client I have fired.”

Fired? Frankly, having the guests "buy the house" sounds like a brilliant idea! Certainly it is a better idea than ending up with piles of crystal serving trays or Lladro figurines.

If that is the kind of thing wedding planners disapprove of, that's one more reason we're glad we didn't hire a wedding planner. (Otherwise, we'd never getting away with registering for a dehumidifier.)

Full-color wedding invitations

Though thrifty, we decided to spend money on invitations, but didn't want to go the traditional route. Instead, we used an online printer -- 4by6.com -- that specializes in business cards and postcards. That way, we could get something 4-color, with a matte finish. Total cost was about $380. The down side: there are no standard envelopes to fit postcards, so we had to slice each invitation by hand. I ripped the design off of an old Mermaid Parade Ball poster.

RSVP - So many choices

The respond card is so simple. A little note to say yes or no. And yet it is individually printed (ka-ching!), takes its own little envelope (ka-ching!) and that envelope takes a first-class stamp (ka-ching!). Not at this f'ing wedding!

Instead, Carrie printed our respond cards four to a page and cut them individually. They are adorably random-sized - but all take a 24 cent postcard. Printing costs? Zero! Envelope costs? Zero! Postage costs? 33% off! And she hasn't even converted yet!

We still had to write out the respond cards and didn't really like the assumed emotion that most reply cards have. Your guests are forced to "gladly attend" or "regretfully decline" to attend the wedding. But we don't want to assume how our guests feel, so our respond card said simply:

We sent the cards out and instantly rued our decision. We should have provided more choices:

And of course there are always a couple of invitations where you wish you could send a card like this:

On reflection, though, we have no regrets. The absence of adverbs has given all of our invitees a blank canvas to work with and they are sending jokes and good wishes back in their own hands.

Wedding dress redux

My quest for the perfect dress was hampered by the fact that I didn't want to look for it. In the ideal world, I'd have something like my old prom dress - a vintage chiffon number, sleeveless, with a high collar. But in the real world, I am lazy and cheap, and I HATE shopping.

The future mother-in-law (Eileen) took me to the Bridal Garden, a nonprofit that sells designer gowns, both used and samples, at steep discounts. But even at 75% off, I was still looking at a price tag of around $1,000, which was more than I wanted to pay (though the ladies there were prepared to haggle).

My next stop was to return to what was then my neighborhood. I walked down 5th Avenue in Park Slope with my buddy Alexandra, who was also getting married. We both looked for a dress -- any dress that fit and flattered -- to no avail. (Alexandra ended up hiring a seamstress to make a simple blue dress, but she hated the result and decided she was better off sticking with a black dress that she loved – and that was already in her closet.)

So I turned to Craiglist. After about a week of searching, I found a dress with the neckline I liked for $400. It was a beautiful dress with one obvious flaw: it was in Patchogue. Regardless, I emailed the seller and found out that our measurements were very similar, so I tried to set up an appointment to try the dress on. After waiting a few weeks for a response I was certain of two things: (1) the dress was still available and (2) I didn’t want to schlep out to Patchogue to look at it. So I offered to pay $200 (plus shipping) for the dress without trying it on. At best, I had a dress for $200; at worst, I could put the dress back up on Craigslist. Apparently, the seller didn't want me to come over and try the dress on any more than I did; she gladly accepted the offer.

The dress arrived and it was much more traditional than it appeared in the photos -- it had a long train, for example - but it fit perfectly.... ok, with one exception: the boobs were HUGE. They were packed with enough foam padding to safely FedEx a printer. I don't mind a little padding -- I'm an AA -- but I could have fit a couple of small animals in the boob-cavity of this dress.

Eileen took me to her seamstress, who removed some of the padding (if she removed it all, the front of the dress would float around independent of my movement) and gently took in the sides. The bill: $10. Seriously.

So here are the lessons:

* Craigslist is a buyer's market for wedding dresses. Most dresses don't sell, at least not at the offered price. I wouldn't pay more than 25% of the original cost.

* Bookmark your search and check it regularly.

* Get as much info as you can before going out to look at a dress. Get the owner's measurements. Ask for more photos. You aren’t going to have the luxury of looking at a clearance rack – every trip is for a single dress – so make sure each trip is worth the time.

* Check the listings outside of your area. If you have a little gambler in you, you might be able to find the best bargains in cities that don’t have enough local buyers. If the dress is decent but doesn't fit, you might even make a little money from Craigslist arbitrage.

* Alterations can be very expensive. Find a mother-in-law who has a longstanding relationship with a seamstress. (I’m not sure how to help you with that).