The Plunge Blog

For a little perspective on the madness of wedding planning, today we look overseas to London, where The Times reports on something The Plunge sees eye to eye on: the risk of post-wedding depression.

We know, we know, that sounds like a joke. Post-wedding depression? C'mon. Depression should be reserved for something like break-ups, unemployment, or drafting Larry Johnson in the first round of your fantasy football team.

Yet the whole Bridezilla routine can have a dark underbelly: the more all-consuming the wedding, the harder the post-wedding crash.  And a recent  study suggests that 1 in 10 couples go through this funk.

From The Times:

"I am not sure if it's the pressure they put themselves under to achieve the perfect day," says Andrew, a wedding planner who works in West London, "or if it is the comedown after such an enormous event that has been the focus of their lives for so long. Either way, when they wake up the next day, they find that normal life is a little boring."

Talk to brides, as I did while researching Wedding Babylon, a look behind the scenes of the happiest day of your life, and the symptoms are obvious. They all spoke of feeling flat after the wedding, of being in tears on the honeymoon and the dreadful empty feeling of anti-climax?" Compound this with the fact that the average couple spends between £20,000 and £24,000 (the equivalent of the annual national wage) on the wedding and that 20 per cent of couples start married life in debt, it is no wonder that new brides are so miserable.

So what does this mean for you? At least five things:

1.    To minimize debt, you can get involved with some of the big decisions like the guest list and venue. (More on picking your battles here.)
2.    You can help plan a killer honeymoon to provide a "soft landing" after the wedding.
3.    Don't be a groomzilla that frickin' adds to the stress. Your goal is to be a calming, helpful influence that's supportive and relaxed and helps keep perspective.
4.    Know that if you do have a post-wedding slump you're not alone and it's probably temporary.
5.    The United States is not the only effed up country when it comes to obnoxious weddings. Just like all pornography, wedding-porn is international.

Original article at The Times.  And The Plunge's full thoughts on post-wedding depression here.

A reader writes in:

"I live the Straight Edge lifestyle, which means no drinking, no drugs and no smoking. My family, specifically my 2 brothers, on the other hand, do. My fiancée says that there will be no drinking / booze at our reception. I'd be okay with that, but I know they wouldn't be."

The "Big Three" of Ask the Expert submissions: booze, groomsmen, and strippers. (Or some combination therein.) We get some variation of this question quite a bit, actually. Alcohol's tricky. For grooms and brides who don't drink, the wedding is a violent collision of lifestyles: your own sobriety vs. your guests' expected revelry.  What to do?

First, remember that a little booze never hurt anyone. (Except for liver poisoning, drunk driving deaths, ill-advised hook-ups, depression, sloppy sex, emotional numbness, temporary impotence, poor performance at work, crushing hangovers, and decades of depression caused from the bottle. Other than all that shit, a little booze never hurt anyone.)

Okay, more seriously, follow these three guidelines:

1) It's your party.

Technically "your party" refers to your bride and your family--with you a distant third--but the point is the same. It's your show. If you decree that the day should be dry, then that's within your rights and by God, the day will be dry. A good guest will respect your lifestyle and your wishes. That said, there's a second issue that trumps this...

2) It's your party. So you're the host.

Part of being a host means doing crap that you don't really care about. Let's say you have guests over for the weekend. Even if you don't drink coffee, you'd probably have some packs of instant coffee for them in the morning, right?  Even if you personally skip breakfast, you'd probably at least offer the bastards some cereal. It's just good etiquette.

A better example. Let's say you invite a bunch of friends to your home for a dinner party, but you're on a diet so the only thing you're eating is Slim-Fast. When your buddies get there you just toss them Vanilla and Chocolate bottles, cheerfully saying, "Eat up, Fellas!"  Maybe Slim-Fast is great for you. You're losing weight, you look good, you've lowered your cholesterol level. Excellent stuff. But if you're throwing a dinner party, your guests are expecting solid food.

Don't have a wedding that serves the social-equivalent of Slim-Fast.

Except...  You should also do the following:

3) Know your guests.

The trick is to know what your guests are expecting and not disappoint.  If the bulk of your guests also live the Straight Edge lifestyle, then maybe you're okay with keeping the party dry. Back to the dinner metaphor, this would be the equivalent of all your dinner-guests also on a Slim-Fast diet, so they're comfortable with the meal.   

From your note, though, it sounds like that's not the case. If your brothers, family, and other friends all drink...throw ‘em a bone and serve some alcohol.

(Note: There's one issue that transcends all of this, of course. If your fiancée has some hard-core reason why she doesn't want booze-something personal that you didn't tell us-well that's a whole other story. The above three points should guide your thinking, but they shouldn't guide you into a holy war against your bride. Ultimately she will win.)

Good luck.

An anguished reader sent us the following:

"Here's the deal, I got married a month ago and this past weekend I told my wife what had happened at my bachelor party in Montreal, a stripper began to give me oral during a lap dance but I stopped it after only seconds.

"My wife and I did not have sex since that incident because I COULD NOT risk giving her a STD and so I told her what happened. I know I broke her heart and I will never be able to forgive my self. She wants to go to marriage counseling and possibly give it a try but I'm not even sure I deserve it. How can I win back the trust of the women I love with all my heart and soul?"

__________

Always a thorny issue. Should you invite The Ex? 

The results of The Plunge poll are in, and the grooms have spoken emphatically: NO.

62% of Plunge readers said that they will not invite The Ex. 23% said "Yeah, ancient history" and the rest said that "I'm marrying the first girl that would talk to me."

This is a little higher than we might have guessed, mainly because, for better or worse, these days there are so many ex-girlfriends-that-then-become-friends.  It seems, though, that grooms are taking the safe and prudent course.

But are there times when you should invite The Ex? Absolutely.

It depends on the friendship scenario. From our article in the Complications section:

Ex-Scenario 1: You never see The Ex, you're not friends with her, you haven't seen her in years.

Easy. Snub her. If you're not currently good friends, there's utterly no reason to invite The Ex, and your fiancée, justifiably, will wonder why you're even bringing it up.

Never create drama when it can be avoided. Think about the upside vs. the downside. What's the upside-you get to rub The Ex's face in the fact that you're marrying someone hotter? Frankly...that sounds pretty good. Nothing wrong with that. But the downside is that your fiancée will get the wrong impression and wonder why you want this woman to join you for the most important day of your life, whether you still harbor feelings, if she should be jealous, if you'd ever cheat, etc. It gets ugly fast.

Ex-Scenario 2: You banged the chick within 12 months of starting to date your fiancée.

Just like jokes about Hurricane Katrina, "TOO SOON." These things need time. Barring extraordinary circumstances, recent girlfriends must be excluded.

Ex-Scenario 3: You and The Ex are now just platonic good buddies.

This is getting more and more common. You may invite her only if and only if all the following conditions are met:

3A: You've socialized with The Ex as a couple and you haven't noticed any tension between The Ex and the fiancée.

3B: You haven't hooked up with her in years (as in the above, at least 12 months before meeting your fiancée.)

3C: You were never engaged to The Ex.

For Ex-Scenarios 4, 5, and 6, see the complete article here.

A reader writes us with a common problem:

"How does free beer and a friend who drinks too much work?  I'm confused, I have a friend that is going to be in the wedding party. Is there any way to limit the amount of beer he drinks. He gets drunk and rather stupid. I know that if he screws something up, makes some stupid speech, spills a drink on my new wife. She is going to take it out on me. Please help!!"

We get this a lot. At heart, the issue is one of "worlds colliding." For years you have your get-stupid-with-the-buddies world, and then you have the wearing-a-suit-and-acting-grown-up world. They rarely intersect.

And when they do overlap, it happens at the most public and photographed day of your life. Polite society could meet Frank The Tank, which could embarrass your bride, gall your new parents, and, through guilt-by-association, make you look like an ass-clown.

So here's the six-step process for handling Fran The Tank:

1. Don't baby him. 

Don't tell him that he can only have two beers and treat him like you're his parent, insisting that he needs to finish his brussel sprouts before eating dessert. You sort of sound like a shmuck. Yes, this is the end result you want, but there are more tactful ways of going about it.

2. Keep him away from the mic.

 A reader writes: 

"We are planning a destination wedding, but she thinks that her friends and family will be "put-off" by asking them to drive 3 hours away and pay for a hotel.  If we do it locally my family will all still pay for hotels and what not.  She's up for the destination aspect because it significantly cuts the cost because her guest list becomes much smaller.  How do I make her see the light?"

Good. You already have the right mindset about destination weddings. (In case you haven't seen it, check out our full thoughts on destination weddings here. As you can see, we're fans.)

As for getting her to see the light? One word: perspective.

You have questions.

We have answers. Today in a value-sized, 3-for-1 special, we cover unconventional honeymoon destinations (Washington DC: yay or nay?), the virtues of linen, and how to get an engagement ring when you're broke.

A reader writes:

A reader writes:

"I am really glad I found your site. In this increasingly effeminate world, it's great to see men who understand maleness and are willing to help their fellow man.

My situation is probably not uncommon. I'm an alcaholic, and I stopped drinking almost two years ago (the bachelor's party is 9 or 10 months away, still). I'm pretty comfortable with it -- I don't fear a relapse, and I still go see bands in bars, and don't feel tempted. (still I don't go unless there's a band b/c it's just not as much fun hanging out in a loud room when you're sober, gofigure.)

The Bachelor Party is all about 1. The Groom (me) and 2. Drinking (not me anymore) and I'm trying to strike a balance so that my friends don't have to go to a lame party, so that they can have fun and misbehave and whatever, but without CONSTANTLY shoving shots in my face and getting those "oh, I'm not really sure how to toast you or what to buy (other than a shot) to be gregarious" moments.

To give you some kind of idea of who I am and who my friends are I'll tell you this. I'm not a prude. I smoke reefer religiously. I haven't traded my "drunk friends" for sober ones, either. I like them. They're fun. I'm not terribly into sports (which is not to say that I'm unathletic) but might be convinced to try paintball. I love rollerderby. I play in a rock band, and have played in bands for a decade now. I don't do church. Or Christ.

So are any of the above activities or anything else going to satisfy them? How can I make this fun for them, and no stress for me. I mean, it's my party, and if I end up babysitting drunks, I'd rather stay home. I won't force them to come to a lame party, either. *HELP*

Thanks for listening!

Typically, an interview with a "wedding-planner-to-the-stars" will make us reach for our favorite brand of gift-registry-salad fork...and pluck out our eyeballs, Oedipus-style.

Happily, instead of a ho-hum interview about stationary or wedding gowns, it's conducted by our friends at Esquire, canvassing ground such a: 1) Whether it's okay to flirt with the cute caterer (assuming, ideally, you're not the groom); 2) The ethics and decorum of drinking beer out of the bottle; 3) The best man's responsibility vis-a-vis lapdances (which we cover extensively here); and so on.

Additionally, we're happy to see them pick up a trend that's irritated us for some time: the absurdity of splattering JUST MARRIED!!! all over the "getaway car." Yes, perhaps this still happens in Kate Hudson-ish movies, but that bears little resemblance to real life. We've left the era of tying beer cans to bumpers.

On that note, from Esquire:

Is it still appropriate to scrawl "Just Married" on the getaway car? Seems a bit tacky.

It's a simple media equation. Recession + Wedding Season = 20,000 articles about how to save money at your wedding. (Are we guilty of this cliché? Absolutely.)

Today's Wall Street Journal, however, finds a curious new angle: brides who resell their gowns after the wedding.

Is this logical? Money-smart? Yes and yes. But go ahead and try suggesting this to your fiancée . We dare you. And then we'll profile you in our new sister site, TheCoffin.com.

In fact, this trend inspired us to write the Top 10 Worst Money-Saving Ideas you can possibly suggest to your bride: 

It's true in this recession. It's true in boom times. It's been true for decades.

At the heart of wedding planning is a sweet, romantic old saying: "Money talks, bullshit walks." Those who are paying--whether it's her parents, your parents, or even you and your fiancée--will inevitably feel a sense of entitlement, and those who aren't paying could feel insecure, overlooked, or marginalized. Welcome to your new life. This is the awfulness you've dreaded--power struggles, jealousies, and holy wars over guest lists.

Stock up on your favorite hard liquor. Drink deep. When you sober up, you'll probably need to tackle one (or more) of these five uncomfortable money issues.

Do you have a weird, awkward money issue that's not included? E-mail Drowning@ThePlunge.com.

A reader writes this simple, one-line e-mail:

 "I want to propose to my man. (I'm a woman.) How should I do it, or should I?"

From the Ask the Expert response:

Let's start by providing something that will actually get used: an e-mail address for hate mail: HateMail@ThePlunge.com.

It's an old stereotype: every guy wants a Prenup, has trust issues, wrestles with his insecurities, and wonders how, or if, he should coax his fiancée into signing the damn thing.

Except...maybe that's a complete myth.

The Plunge poll results are in, and they might surprise you:  72% of respondents said "No. I don't want/need one." Adding to that subtotal, in a twist, 13% of guys said "I hope my sugar momma doesn't make me sign one." Less than 6% of guys say that yes, they want a Prenup, but don't want to risk asking her.  And only 9% are actually putting pen to paper.

The bottom line?  The overwhelming majority--91%--don't plan on asking for a Prenup for one reason or another.

At The Plunge headquarters, we're big believers in alcohol. Barring any religious or AA issues, we recommend alcohol to help melt tension, give you confidence to finesse the In-Laws, and give your groomsmen a reason for attendance.

We also, however, advise the groom to closely monitor his intake. Underdrink the In-Laws. Hydrate. Never get sloppy. (Get the full lowdown on how to soberly behave at your rehearsal dinner here.)

Or else?

You could die.

A Plunge reader writes in with this uncomfortable question:

"My best friend took himself out of my groomsmen party because he got mad at me for ditching out of golf. He said some pretty mean things, about both me and my fiancée. We've been friends since 4th grade and this is the first time we've really had a falling out. He wont be himself again unless I apologize for what I did and admitting he's right. He is married to his wife. I'm engaged to my girlfriend and we have two kids. He doesn't seem to get the lifestyle difference. Should I swallow my pride and make mends? Or make sure he realizes (which he wont) that our lifestyles are different and things do in fact come up at terrible times, like before golf."

It's a good question. For whatever reasons, friendships between men are rarely explored, and when they are, it's only with the most comic hyperbole like I Love You, Man.

So we take a slightly more sober approach.