I have to admit that the whole wedding was my fault. All of the arguments, all of the frustration, and all of the headaches were my fault for two reasons. First, I proposed to Katherine during a Valentine’s Day trip to Paris (pictures coming soon). Second, I ignored Katherine’s pleas to elope and forced a ‘real’ wedding. That being said, I have to attribute the entire success of the marriage to Katherine’s hard work. With my travel schedule and short attention span most of the work for this fell to my bride-to-be!
The Wedding Industry is EVIL! It is designed to over-charge women who are flushed with excitement over the prospect of getting married (your stereotypical blushing bride). When shopping for wedding dresses a number of shops removed the tags from dresses so that comparing the price of a dress across establishments was almost impossible. This is immoral and also illegal! Of course there are also hidden charges. If you attempt to purchase a wedding dress at a boutique you will probably be informed that there is a delivery charge and if you need the dress in less than three month, there is also a rush delivery charge. Katherine was able to find a beautiful dress at a boutique shop where she was able to try it on. With a little bit of research she found the same dress at an online retailer for around half the suggested retail price with free shipping. The boutique shop was charging a hundred dollars over MSRP and wanted over seventy-five dollars in shipping and rush delivery charges.
October 24th, 2002 at 8:16 pm
remind me not to get married.
or at least, to just go to vegas and get married by an elvis impersonator.
October 25th, 2002 at 8:19 am
A man that admits he is at fault in all things and will clean out the basement on demand! Katherine is lucky! Oh yeah, AND recognizes the true value of some good, quality plastic kitchenware.
October 25th, 2002 at 10:40 am
I detect a theme: elope.
October 25th, 2002 at 10:49 am
It sounds as though you have become a new man. For those curmudgeons reading this our duties for getting married were: Find Best Man, Find Ushers, Find Tuxes, SHOW UP!
I think I will simply hand my wife and daughters the checkbook and ask for an extended overseas assignment when the wedding plans need to be made. Returning in time to: Find Tux, SHOW UP!
October 25th, 2002 at 12:47 pm
I really thought that my activities were going to be limited to the following;
With maybe some help in choosing a china pattern. Boy was I wrong, but I am very happy with how everything turned out in the end. I think it was worth all of the effort. Although I am not sure that Katherine is convinced of that.
October 27th, 2002 at 7:54 am
mwuahahahahaahah. and that from a guy twice-hitched!
my first time around, my mother said, “here’s five grand. knock yourselves out.” amazingly enough, we were able to bring the whole shebang in for just under, including flowers, dresses (bridesmaids’ included) and food. a must-have for weddings that won’t break the bank: lots of talented friends & family.
randy, your wedding was beautiful, but i can’t believe you didn’t mention murray’s role in the ceremony. red leash & all.
October 28th, 2002 at 11:23 am
Thanks Jen!
The biggest eye opener in this entire process was seeing how the Wedding industry has been set up to make people think that if they aren’t spending 30K on their wedding that it will be a squalid ugly little affair.
I do plan on actually writing an entry about the day of the wedding and maybe about the rehearsel dinner, but I just haven’t had the energy to start on it yet.
October 31st, 2002 at 3:07 pm
As the other person invloved in the matrimony, I thought I would put my two cents in…
The wedding industry was created for your “blushing brides”, from the big, super-white dresses, to the pink tulle bags filled with candies, which more or less made me nauseus every step of the way. To add to the stress of planning a wedding that I did not particularly want, everyone around me assumed that I was indeed one of those blushing brides and constantly asked me if I was excited and/or overjoyed about the wedding.
However, now that the dust has settled and everyone finally went home, I do have to conceed that the wedding went well and I was definitely happy to see that everyone had a good time. Nevertheless, even after three weeks, I am still not fully convinced that it was worth all the effort. Perhaps I need to give it some more time for all the bitterness to pass ;-). Heck, maybe in a few years I might tell everyone that it was a great thing after all.
Eloping and getting hitched by an Elvis impersonator was my first choice, I even had one picked out too, but Randy kind of defeated the purpose of eloping when he wanted to invite his family along…
October 31st, 2002 at 3:11 pm
Just to be mushy and make Randy blush, I want to admit to everyone that I did marry a great guy :), and it was worth all the effort to plan this wedding to see Randy happy.