The following are some questions and answers that I went through with Mike Adamick who has a groom-related blog. Mike is a reporter and essayist whose work has appeared on National Public Radio, MSNBC.com, and in Today’s Groom Magazine. The interview follows:
Mike: You're the ex-soldier, cigar-smoking prototypical man's man it seems. So why write about, gasp, weddings?
Ken: I hate feeling like everyone is talking over my head about a subject. That’s the way I felt when my fiancée, now wife, started planning our wedding over 30 years ago and that’s how I felt when my daughter and wife started talking about her wedding this year. I remember screwing up the addresses for the wedding invitations, trying to mail merge between MS Word and Excel, something you should do when you’re in a foul mood since I guarantee you that’s the mood you’ll be in when you finish. I took my wife and daughter’s spreadsheet and pasted in whatever they had, e.g., John and Jane Smith. When they saw the envelopes you would have thought there was a turd in the pool, but then they mumbled something about, “It’s just dad.” They then banned me from my own computer. By the way the correct answer is: Mr. and Mrs. John Smith.
Anyway, I started looking at weddings and discovered that there are 2.3 million couples getting married this year, so there should be about the same number of ‘Fathers of the Bride.’ I then looked for information/books about what a father of the bride was supposed to do. As it turns out there are two books on the subject, both written by women with one starting off, ‘Idiot’s Guide…’ Since I am investing more into this event than I did for my first house and new car combined I decided if I could just get my arms around this information and translate it into man-speak, then I might be able to parlay it into paying for this wedding. What can I say, “I’m a dreamer.”
Mike: You have a strong opinion about local weddings in a cookie cutter ballroom vs. a destination wedding in a beautiful location. Any tips for getting away while not breaking the bank?
Ken: I love to travel. Between my years in the military and since then I’ve probably gone around the world a half dozen times. Third world countries where I can live like a king are my favorite. My daughter’s wedding will be in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, which by the way I don’t consider a third world country. It is amazing the things that you can do there that you can’t do in the ‘Land of the Free.’ For instance, if I want to smoke a cigar in an elevator the only thing stopping me is either courtesy or someone bigger than me. Before everyone starts to think I’m a Communist, I’m an ex-military type who survived the Vietnam War, invasion of Grenada, Philippines Revolution, and one kidnapping attempt in Thailand. I love America, but it has gotten too politically correct for me.
As for getting away and not breaking the bank, one of the greatest deals are the all-inclusive resorts, many of which are now catering to weddings. You can let guests pick up their own tab, or you can pay for or subsidize their stay. Any time you move away from a major metropolitan area, the price will drop. Also look at unusual locations. There are many state-owned historic homes in our area that you can use for a small price. You can even rent out your local museum. At the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival you can rent out their chapel on the festival grounds for $100. Guests can gnaw on turkey legs and swill goblets of beer. My daughter didn’t go for it.
Mike: Along that line, any tips for other fathers of the bride? How can they make it through this process with their heads on straight?
Ken: About 90 percent of the advice out there for fathers of the bride is ‘be supportive and write checks.’ Down that path lies destruction. Before your wife and daughter shove second mortgage paperwork in front of you, you need to be in on the planning process. On my site I’ve gotten some comments about how these couples didn’t want their parents involved and they did everything themselves and how everybody really enjoyed the pigs-in-a-blanket at their reception. You can still let them plan it out, but I suggest you take a list of things that the bride’s family are responsible for, which is basically everything expensive except for the engagement ring, and have your daughter prioritize what is most important. You can then use that to help build a budget. Basically, your daughter needs to realize that there are limits.
Mike: What's your daughter and future son-in-law think about your blog?
Ken: I didn’t tell them initially, figuring I’d tick them off since I’m pretty honest about everything. But I did confess to my daughter about two weeks into it and she said she thinks it’s great. I don’t think she read all the posts, especially the one where I talked about her telling me that I had to pay for her wedding. I haven’t heard from my future son-in-law yet, but they live up in New York, so we don’t see him much. I’m curious if eventually someone that they know will read my blog and then point it out to all of their friends. That could be fun.
Mike: Any tips for grooms on how to get along with the future father-in-law?
Ken: I’m sure everyone is different. The main thing is that fathers want to see evidence that any future son-in-law cares deeply for their daughter. My future son-in-law passed on some lucrative job opportunities so that he could be close to my daughter during their courting. That said a lot about his commitment to the relationship. He even took up smoking cigars with me, he’s got potential.
Mike: Give me some brief bio stuff: Age, Location, When's the big date?
Ken: I am 50+ with the same wife for 32 years. We live just outside D.C. in northern Virginia. I’ve taken ADD and turned it into an art form. I work a day job as a government contractor and in my spare time I am working on two different book projects, started my Father of the Bride Blog with its planned book, act as a background plain clothes detective on HBO’s The Wire (Season 4) and am playing a police chief in a film just starting to shoot, “The Cult of the Sea King,” and am the Travel Correspondent for Cigar Magazine. My daughter will be getting married in October this year in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
