What’s it going to cost me?

That is the question that is first asked more often than any other when a father finds out that his princess wants to get married.  He may not say it out loud, but it stays at the forefront of his mind from that first notification until the last bill is paid.  Daughters and wives are thinking of how wonderful the day will be and immediately start to mentally review every wedding article, magazine, book, television show and conversation that they have ever had concerning weddings.  You, on the other hand, probably only have a vague memory of your wedding day.  Face it, most guys aren’t thinking of the table settings or caterer; we had other things on our mind.

So, what will the wedding cost me? More than you want it to, that’s for sure.  How can I mitigate or limit the cost? This you can do by developing a strategy and budget early on in the planning process.  If you plan to just write checks until you hit some magical number in your head—don’t.  Down this path lies destruction.

You need to develop a wedding day strategy. Figure out who your friends, allies, courtiers, and enemies are, and treat them according to the role they play. BeautiControl, a direct sales cosmetic firm, cleverly named their top package of cosmetics and services the “I Deserve It All” package.  For daughters, wives, future in-laws and others, they often take this mantra serious enough to convince many a poor father to take out a second mortgage.  Unfortunately there are no hard and fast rules as to which category the people associated with your daughter’s wedding will fall into, but you need to do some mental categorizations.