Now here’s an idea I hadn’t thought of

I know a lot of people who’ve tried to come up with really creative ways to pay for their weddings. Most of them end up borrowing some money from the fam, taking a loan on their 401(k), or just put it on plastic. Then there’s Kelly Gray of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Ms. Gray, the NYT reports, managed to auction, on eBay, the fifth bridesmaid slot in her wedding next April for a whopping $5,700. Yep, that’s right $5,700. We haven’t heard for sure that she and her beau have landed the cash to pay for this event, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Let’s just hope the winning bidder - who joined eBay on 6/25 - doesn’t turn out to be a practical joker.

A list of budget line-items

Okay, so you’ve just gotten engaged - where to start? I’m going to suggest heading to the bookstore, as there are plenty of great organizers and other types of books for you to use. If you’re not looking to spend an hour looking through tome after tome until you find some things you really want to plan with, then this list, from Brides.com, of just about everything on your wedding budget is probably a good one to go with - so break out the looseleaf binder and get going.

Your wedding party and a small country’s GDP

I constantly hear different opinions on wedding parties, specifically on the size of them and who’s “required” to be in the wedding, and so on. While I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule to follow when it comes to this friend or that one, that brother or sister, or all-or-nothing groups of friends, this is probably one of the more challenging things to do, sans maybe culling the guest list down to make the venue - and your budget - work for you.

This post from Mrs. Tulip on Weddingbee talks about the size of her wedding overall, and how the wedding party in the photo she included being “half the size of her entire wedding,” and I’m sure she’s not the only one thinking that way, especially in a time that appears to be getting rough, economically, for a lot of Americans.

I recently heard a comment from a guy I know who has a very large wedding party - on both sides - purely because “she’s got a big family.” Soooo, everyone needs to be IN the wedding? Costs aside, doesn’t that mean that every other person in that family is now probably going to have the ENTIRE family in their wedding, each and every time there’s another set of nuptials? Are they all going to enjoy one another’s company and events the same if they keep doing it over and over again? I guess it’s not for me to say, but I think that feels more like people are having people in their wedding for the sake of doing so, rather than because they’ve chosen a few special friends and relatives to be a part of the wedding party.

Meg at A Practical Wedding takes this conversation a step further, pointing out that having a wedding party doesn’t mean you have to go all over the planet buying ridiculous gifts for them. She suggests that doing helpful things such as paying for tuxedos or dresses, travel to a bachelor/bachelorette event, and other things can be just as meaningful, especially if you have people in your wedding party who are not from “in town.”

What’s with the whole cake thing?

Alright, so earlier today I was bummed to learn that Charm City Cakes, which some of you might recognize from Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes” is all booked up for our wedding weekend next June. Fortunately, there are plenty of other cake options, I just won’t be the cool kid in school that day for having a cake created by Duff and his fantastic crew. So, when it comes down to the whole cake thing, what kinds of things do you need to have a clue about, and what kinds of things are just beyond your control?

First off, I’ve gotta say that we’re definitely contemplating the always fantastic stylings of NYC’s Magnolia Bakery, even if just to have some fun cupcakes on the table or so we can dine on the fantastic red velvet cake they make. Which reminds me…

But seriously. Martha Stewart’s Bride’s Guide blog (I just read the RSS, I don’t make it up) posts this week about some advice from Elisa Strauss, owner of Confetti Cakes, on how to make decisions on what kind of cakes - or desserts - you should have at your wedding. While it might be “targeted” at the bride, this goes for you, too, grooms.

A couple of days ago, AisleDash’s Caroline Humphreys shared some tips on flavors and pricing. I especially appreciated the fact that “degree of difficulty” changes the price of the cake. Makes you kinda wanna price out something complicated, just to see what number you can put up on the board.

What if it doesn’t work out?

There are a million things that you’ve spent time on in putting your wedding together, and there are just that many left to deconstruct should things not work out and the wedding be canceled. Forbes.com has a commentary piece by Marcy Blum, president of Marcy Blum Associates, about how to take apart this hugely planned out effort.

You will note that she does specifically state that the purchaser of the engagement ring should receive said ring back. She didn’t really get into the nitty-gritty, and often discussed, details about who broke off what and how that factors into the decision. Just something to keep in mind.

[via DiamondVues]

On wedding cakes and centerpieces

Now let’s be honest - lots of guys are a visual bunch. What’s that got to do with the price of tomatoes? Well, in the whole wedding process, you’re going to be asked a slew of times “what do you think of [x]?” and you might as well have a perspective. I’ve consistently found that my usual answers “it’s great,” “it’s fine,” “that’s okay,” and “ehhh” aren’t cutting it. Sooo, what to do?

Well, howabout figuring out a way to get some perspective? From time to time I’ll just start dropping links to blogs and sites that offer visually appealing stuff that can’t hurt to take a gander at from time to time.

Today, I wanted to point out the blog of Bellissima Vita, a wedding coordinator out of San Francisco. It’s chock full of features such as the Centerpiece or Cake of the week, along with some other assorted items for your viewing pleasure. So start paying attention to such things and improve your responses to “I don’t like green” or “That’s too many flowers.” Make a point to not go TOO FAR right away with “I’m thinking we go with the square and rectangle vases on the tables because I’m linear like that” or you might get a stare or two. Just sayin’.

Economic woes starting to show?

While NYC appeared to be having no lack of heavy spending back in April (and presumably not much has changed since then), I’m not sure the rest of the country can say the same thing. The AP’s Madlen Read reports that the average cost, according to The Wedding Report, will be down a few dollars this year. Now, that doesn’t mean that people are spending less on every little thing, as Read states that “outlays for the reception and rings are declining” and purchases on the “ceremony and the rehearsal dinner appear to be up,” which is definitely curious - but it all seems to show that people are looking to make sure their friends and family have a great time, but are trying to perhaps stay at a firm budget number, and not raising it just because certain things cost more.

Looking into money matters

Kate tips us off to this article at Wise Bread about some creative (and some out there) ideas about coming up with the dough to pay for a wedding. We’re thinking that the option to start saving (and early!) or the last item about not starting off your life together with a stack of debt are probably the way to go.

Why are you getting married, anyway?

Shawn Fremstad at inclusionist writes on Tuesday about an interesting statistic from a Kaiser Family Foundation Poll, that 5% of those surveyed got married for access to health care benefits. That doesn’t mean that they discussed it, or that was part of the overall decision that maybe had them get married earlier, or anything like that - it’s that they “mainly” chose to do so for that reason.

So, here’s a question for all of you potential grooms out there - is that a “valid” reason to be the priority for getting married?

The ultimate do-it-yourself project

Now, I know one person in particular who’s got the capability to do this at his house (you know who you are…), but I haven’t really seen anyone attempting to press their entire batch of invitations before. jratlee sends us some pretty awesome photo/video links featuring Peter Baker and his fiancee, Michelle, getting their production groove on.

Impressive, to say the least.

The money: Where does it go?

This month, The Knot released the results of a survey of a whopping 20,000+ people, with much of the focus on where the dollars go. Points of interest as follows:

• Almost half of the wedding budget, on average, goes to the reception
• Cake costs increased the most between 2006 and 2007, jumping 35%, on average
• Photography costs went up about 8%, year over year
• 36% of grooms are “significantly involved in planning the wedding (it’s why we’re here!)
• 10% of couples are choosing to have destination weddings

What’s all of this mean? Well, probably that you and yours might need to have around $28,000 in the bank to pay for it all, that even the start of a slowing economy in 2007 didn’t stop year-over-year costs from increasing in a number of areas. What doesn’t it mean? Well, that you have to “follow the lead” of what other people happen to be doing.

It’s a good survey and has some interesting factoids. Definitely suggest clicking through and reading the rest of it.

To get video or not get video

Videographers.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I went to enough weddings in the 90’s to swear off videographers like I might swear off, well, just about anything. That being said, apparently the days of old when it comes to bright lights in the faces of your guests, table interviews, and large cameras and lights in the way of your reception are just that - the days of old. Well, that’s at least what the wedding video industry is trying to make sure we’re all aware of.

It’s not as simple as just a video from a couple who “regretted” not having a video done, or some quality footage from a vendor or two that’s going to turn the tide, right? As a groom, I know that I need to see it to believe it. Ask your potential videographer for some examples of their work that was unobtrusive, yet still hit the mark. Find out what kind of equipment they’ll be using, make sure they know about the lighting at the house of worship or wherever your ceremony might take place, the reception hall, or wherever else that you might have scheduled to take photographs. Will there be multiple shooters? How much “planning” do you need to do in advance of the big day so they can do the best job?

These are all important questions that will do multiple things: Help you choose the videographer that will (hopefully) work for you, and help you figure out if you want to have one present at your wedding or not.

Going all out (of your wallet)

Over at the NYT’s City Room, Jennifer 8. Lee writes about how, if you believe what went on at Wedding Salon in NYC, that the economic woes that the US of A is going through aren’t exactly stopping people from throwing down wads of cash for weddings and wedding accouterments, at least in New York City. What does that mean for those of us who aren’t barking up the I-can-afford-a-million-dollar-wedding tree? Well, probably that you shouldn’t feel pushed down the stairs after reading such an article, and that a great wedding at the budget you and your spouse-to-be have at your disposal is more than available.

All that’s well and good, now that you have an ego re-booster and all, but let’s get down to brass tacks. What the continual exposure of wedding details, ideas and strategies that the press (including us at Groomify) is more than happy to write about does for you is allow you to do your damndest to knock off or come up with a “similar” solution to fill the “need” created by hearing about the awesome things that celebrities and others living the high life do on their wedding days. While many people poo-poo the various books and other materials sold on newsstands every day, I’ve found, to date, that picking up some of the photography books that feature celebrity, destination, or creative weddings put some great ideas up for grabs. Whether it’s us, your significant other, a friend or relative, we all know someone who’s creative enough to take a look at a hugely amazing cake that cost $10,000 and figure out how to make it happen for 10% of that. Just because you don’t live close enough to that California farm whose photographs looked stunning doesn’t mean you can’t snag an element or two from the farm and find it at a location close to your nuptials.

The take home from all of this? Don’t you - or your significant other - get bummed out when reading these kinds of things, and use your head to turn the tables on it all.

[Photo credit: penywise]

Need a wedding planner on the cheap?

If your bride (or you, perchance) are in need of some wedding planner assistance, then OurWeddingDay.com might have a solution with their new BrideLine service. Brideline lets brides (and others, presumably) chat through IM technology with wedding planners to get advice from 9am to 6pm Eastern time, Mondays through Fridays.

This isn’t at all to say that using BrideLine is going to wholly replace the time and effort that a wedding planner puts in were you to pay one, but it will probably could save you a few bucks if you need a little help but don’t have the dollars to put you over the top.