What Dungeons and Dragons taught me about wedding budget frustrations
I’m an avid player of all tabletop roleplaying games. But my favorite, the one I keep coming back to, is good ol’ Dungeons and Dragons. I have played characters at all levels, from a 1st-level rogue who could get knocked out if a goblin sneezed on her the wrong way to a 27th-level bard who ultimately became the avatar of a god, and everything in between. I’ve scoured books and websites looking for just the right prestige class, feat, or special ability to make my characters the very best they could be. But what does this have to do with wedding planning? Or budgeting? Turns out, quite a lot…
I wish we’d had wedding insurance: Our wedding venue stole our money and ran
When I eventually got engaged, I had one venue at the top of my list; Brooklyn’s reBar. We immediately put down a deposit and made monthly payments for 18 months. We had 17 days until our wedding, I was freaking out over whether or not my mantilla veil had been delivered, when I got a Facebook notification that reBar was closed.
Bring Your Own Bickering: Why does everyone freak out over BYOB weddings?
Ah, ye olde BYOB debate. Second to the “Are potluck weddings tacky?” debate, this is one that people have some pretty strong and pretty divided opinions about. As always, our answer is “It’s ALL tacky — so what?” but there are some issues more complex than just subjective etiquette and tastefulness police at play here.
The myth of the “gift grab”
In my many years of publishing a wedding website (and then four years of running a parenting website) one of the things that came up time and time again the concept of a “gift grab.” Maybe this logic used to make a little more sense during a time when most couples A) weren’t paying for their own weddings or B) weren’t living together before getting married. But back here in 2014, round these parts? 43% of us are paying for our own weddings. Why in the world would we spend money on a wedding (or even just a reception) just to get gifts?!
How my wedding planner saved me so much money that she paid for herself, and then some
One day I had plans to meet with a caterer and a photographer and my planner tagged along, and brought with her a second photographer for us to meet with. The moment the amazing, wedding planner-picked husband and wife photography team commented on my TARDIS-blue nail polish, I was sold — SOLD, I tell you — on a photographer that I would never known about if it wasn’t for my planner. Holy cow, did springing for a wedding coordinator just save me $2,550? Yes, yes it did.
Liquor guess-timation: how to creatively calculate your wedding alcohol
We have collected much wisdom from some of our super-savvy Tribesmaids. From how they got their guests to help make the decision, to what an actual wedding order looks like, a simple-to-understand rule, and even some advice as to what to do with the left-overs — we got ’em to dish their cocktail menu details. If you’re looking for answers to this same drinky dilemma, check out these helpful tips…