How I Planned Your Wedding by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

the Notorious B.I.G.: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.”
    SUSAN
    When it comes to giving advice about money, I am not the one to ask. Remember, I’m the one in the pink-tinted shades, writing novels that are meant to transport readers to the realm of fantasy. And I’m the person who ditched a perfectly stable and predictable teaching career in order to pursue my writing dreams. “Pursuing one’s writing dreams” is often a euphemism for “being unemployed” or later, once you’ve found a publisher, “living in subsistence-level poverty.”
    I have known the uncertain merits of measuring the backseat ofthe car to see if it’s actually conceivable that a family could live there after eviction. I’ve eschewed entering my books in prestigious award contests because I needed the entry fee to buy groceries. Oh, and those phony-looking blank checks that come in the mail with your credit card statement? Guess what? You really can write them to the IRS.
    As you can see, budget and finance are hardly my thing. Passion, not practicality, is the fiction writer’s strong suit.
    Long-term survival in this business does, however, train even the most passionate among us to be cautious when it comes to spending money. So when your adored and newly engaged daughter comes to you and says she wants to spend six figures on her wedding day, feel free to take a moment.
    Take two moments. Knock yourself out.
    Dealing with the wedding budget is a crucible for family values. How much is enough? How much is too much, and how—outside of a small brown plastic pill bottle—do you find the balance?
    I don’t recall exactly what my own wedding cost. I do remember that my dad wrote a single check to the Always and Forever Wedding Chapel, and he didn’t even break into a sweat. Our “reception” was a gathering of friends and family at my parents’ home and we had a sheet cake from the grocery store around the corner. However, I do concede that I was not the girl who fantasized all her life about being a bride. I fantasized about writing that bride’s story, again and again. If someone had threatened to take that dream away, she would have had a fight on her hands.
    Here’s where I want to remind you—your daughter’s wedding is about her dreams, not yours. And who are you to deny this person her dreams? So what if you want her to spend her wedding budget on a 401(k) plan or a down payment on a home? Take a deep breath, step back, give her a lump sum you’re comfortable with…and let go.
    My husband likes to say water finds its own level. You hope that level is not so deep that everyone ends up like the people in steerage on the Titanic. Chances are, you’ll come up with a plan that makes thebride happy. How you get to that point is a mysterious process involving, to borrow an apt phrase, a searching and fearless moral inventory of your finances, your marriage, your emotions and your conscience.
    I know what you’re thinking: I’d rather have a root canal.
    But I also know you’ll do the right thing. Take a deep breath, take a step back and set priorities.
    Warning: the wedding industry is a Vast Dove-Wing Conspiracy that exists in order to shake you down like a two-bit pickpocket. It’s easy to get swept into a vortex of wanton spending in which you—a hitherto reasonable individual—are brainwashed into thinking you cannot possibly pull off a wedding without horses dyed to match the bridal party colors, saffron-infused Kobe beef wrapped in Maine lobster tails and sprinkled with gold leaf and Beluga caviar, matching Louboutin pumps for the bridesmaids, a flyover by the Blue Angels and letterpressed toilet paper.
    Do me a favor and stay in touch with your Common Sense Fairy. You know her. She’s that smart Inner Girl who has reeled you back from the precipice all your life. She’ll remind you to take a step back, do your breathing and embrace your right to the line-item veto. Heed her well.
    Ultimately, the goal is to