Before You Say "I Do"

I know a bit about money. I’ve made a little, spent a little and lost a lot. I like to think that I’ve learned from experience. How do we learn from experience? Usually, the only lessons learned are the expensive ones – both financially and emotionally. Personally, I believe in the premise that if you bang your head against the wall, it will feel pretty good when you stop. That’s how you learn. It just depends how many times you have to bang your before it sinks in.

It’s a pretty universal concept and can be applied to all aspects of life – or so I thought. Apparently, it doesn’t apply to weddings. Weddings are one arena where, unfortunately, emotion often trumps common sense.

I’ve made a few errors in judgment in my life. Well, maybe more than a few. But, today I’m going to focus on one specific area – weddings and money. That’s why I refuse to get married more than three times. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Like most guys, I try to put things into perspective. A wedding is one day out of your life – unless, like me, you have more than one. Weddings require just too damn many decisions – they all have dollar signs attached.

Tuxedos, wedding dress, invitations, rings, food, liquor, flowers, wedding cake, the band, the disc jockey, photographers, videographer, the bridal registry, whom to invite, seating arrangements. If you want to get into a doozy of an argument, try not inviting her third cousin who has more tattoos than teeth. Gentlemen, pick your battles carefully.

I contemplated eloping. Notice I didn’t say “we.” It was a short conversation. Eloping was out of the question, but an intriguing idea, nevertheless. Actually, I thought it would be kind of romantic to hop on a plane, fly to Vegas, and get married in one of those little chapels. For a few extra bucks, you get an Elvis impersonator as a witness. They even throw in a couple of Polaroids. Cost of eloping: $1,500 – and you’re just as married – no muss, no fuss. She didn’t agree. Case closed.

You can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars on this “special” day, especially if the bride-to-be thinks she has a blank check to work with. I watch in disbelief the TV shows where couples spend more on invitations than I did for my entire wedding. It’s scary. When it’s over, all you have to show for it are a marriage license, some photographs, a half-eaten tasteless wedding cake, four used centerpieces, a used dress and fuzzy memories.

Do the math. Multiply every guest by $50 and see how quick it adds up – and that’s just for the food. Friends and relatives come out of the woodwork. At $50/per, they can crawl right back into the woodwork.

Traditionally, it’s the bride’s parents who pop for the wedding. Let’s just say, I did not choose wisely. The parents of my bride (#2) were good people, but they didn’t have a pot to piss in. They were one paycheck away from government cheese. So, it was my pot that would bear the brunt of the ordeal.

Now, I’m a pretty easy guy to get along with, but there are limits. I made it very clear that, whatever we spend on the wedding, we would have to replenish before we could start spending again. Even back then, I didn’t believe in debt. It’s simple. You don’t buy anything you can’t pay for.

Paying $20,000 for a wedding is, by many standards, cheap. It was painful at the time. It sucked up most of my savings. When brides spend like Dennis Rodman buying facial jewelry, they don’t consider the “I told you so” factor. You find out a lot about your potential partner as you go through the wedding preparation process. They don’t want your opinion, just the money. To my dismay, I discovered that my future bride was flakier than 20 pounds of Greek pastry.

Six months into the marriage she wanted us to go on vacation. I said, “Remember? We spent our vacation money on the wedding.” Soon thereafter, she wanted a new refrigerator. I said, “We spent our new refrigerator money on the wedding.” Then, she wanted a new dress to attend a function. I said, “You have a perfectly good white dress in your closet. You only used it once.”

In the divorce settlement, she got the wedding pictures. I got the bill and the lesson. I should have known better. I was never that fond of Greek pastry.

(Mike Parnos has been writing about personal finance and teaching stocks and option trading for 15 years. Mike is the author of "Option Profits: The Naked Truth." Mke also writes a highly successful options newsletter at www.Mike-Parnos.com.)