Time to shut up...

A new book out says that verbal communication may not be the best thing. I guess it makes men shut down - oh really?? like that is news. An article on cnn.com says that it is about nonverbal communication with many men.

Best Places to Get the Benjamins

America's Best Places to Earn a Living according to Forbes.com

1. Houston, Texas
2. Minneapolis, Minn.
3. Boston, Mass.
4. Washington, D.C.
5. New York, N.Y.

We are not moving to 1 or 2 that is for sure.

Can Love Survive the Flu asks CNN

B says he has a great immune system and never gets sick. He does caveat it with the fact that every couple of years he will catch something and it is always bad. Like really bad. He claims I will have to make him eat, drink, and basically breathe. Sometimes I think he doubts whether I can handle it. In my humble opinion, I think men are just bad patients good or bad immune system.

I thought of this fact when reading this CNN article, "Can Love SUrvive the Flu?". I had the flu this past year (I don't get the flu shot) and we survived.

How do I convince B?

CNN had an interesting article about the growing trend of stay-at-home wives. Wives not mothers meaning no kids, no job. Makes me think home ec classes may be coming back into fashion.

I want that. Then we could get a dog.

Read the full article here.

Who should make the guest list?

A really interesting article today on CNN about how the author devised a quiz to see who should make your wedding guest list and who shouldn't. Read it here.

I wonder how many of our guests would pass the test?

Economy Doesn't Affect Dress Purchase

According to this article, brides will scale back on wine and food but not the dress. This all feeds into the notion that a bride is a princess crap or "Say Yes to the Dress". Let's focus on the main thing - the marriage. You know the thing that is forever and lasts longer than a day.

Read the article here. I sound a little bitter today.

Speaking of "Say Yes to the Dress" it looks like Claudia got the ol' heave ho as she is no longer on the show. Too bad. I liked her.

Bride Shot Dead in Honeymoon Hotel

Thank God we are not going to Antigua.

A bride was killed in a bungled robbery attempt - read about it here.

Financial Infidelity

Secret spending in a marriage was a big discussion item today on the Internet. The story about secret spending was on CNN.com and can be found here.

I am going to watch B like a hawk, like a hawk I tell you.

The final frontier...

Let's get married in space!!! It only costs $2.3 million. Read more here.

Hmm, this is interesting...

This social experiment would be have good for some kids in Gloucester, Mass.

Basically the show, Baby Borrowers puts teen couples in charge of real, live babies that poop and cry for a few days. And this would have been beneficial for the teenage girls in Gloucester who made a pregnancy pact. 17 girls are pregnant in the school which typically sees 4 pregnancies a year. Maybe if they actually had to take care a baby they would back out of the pact.

Wedding Party Left in Dust

CNN had a interesting set of photos from the China Quake. Click here and you can see a couple taking their wedding photos and then the collapse of everything around them. Everyone was afe but they were stranded for awhile.

Want to be on tv?

Making your dream wedding a reality can be almost impossible. And if you or someone you know is getting married THIS SUMMER, then there’s very little time left to make that dream come true. That’s why “My Fair Wedding,” the newest lifestyle show from the Women’s Entertainment Network, is offering a few lucky brides a chance to have celebrity wedding planner David Tutera ENHANCE and UPGRADE their weddings before it’s too late!

In 2006, Modern Bride Magazine honored David as one of the Top 25 Trendsetters of The Year. With a few thousand dollars and his extensive knowledge and skill, David Tutera can bring some last-minute elegance to your fast-approaching nuptials.

If you or someone you know has spent months planning that dream wedding, and something STILL isn’t quite right, contact our producers TODAY! Email Wedding@pilgrimfilms.tv with the wedding date, a picture of the bride and why she needs David’s help!

Weddings should take place within an hour of New York City in July or August, 2008!

Shout out to Kerry on her birthday!

Groomsmen take notice...

According to the knot here are your duties and I have issue with many of them.

The groom's close friends and relatives, the groomsmen, support him throughout the wedding planning process. Take your role as groomsman seriously -- after all, you're helping one of your best friends through what can be a very nerve-racking day. Plus, if you act like the levelheaded, responsible guy you are, you'll impress those single bridesmaids. Read on for a rundown of your duties.

• Like the bridesmaids, you'll have to pay for your wedding gear. Luckily, you can usually rent a tux for quite a bit less than what the bridesmaid dresses will cost. Be sure to get fitted at the specified store with time to spare -- you don't want to walk down the aisle in floods! As a groomsman, be prepared to serve as information central for those who aren't in the know.
  
• Attending all prewedding festivities (engagement party, couple shower, bachelor party, rehearsal dinner). Perks: Free vittles and drinks.
  
• Helping the best man plan the groom's bachelor party. Perks: Good food, drinks, and perhaps some insights into female anatomy.
  
• You'll conspire with the best man -- and the bridesmaids -- to decorate the honeymoon getaway car in style.
  
• Before the ceremony, you may be asked to usher guests to their seats. At traditional Christian ceremonies, guests of the bride's family sit on the left, and guests of the groom's family sit on the right. At Jewish ceremonies, it's the opposite. When a couple arrives, take the woman's arm and escort her to her seat; her escort will follow you. Always seat the oldest woman first if several guests arrive together. You should arrive at the ceremony site at least 45 minutes early to review special seating requirements.
  
• Be prepared to serve as information central and direct guests to restroom facilities and the reception site.
  
• Purchase a wedding present, perhaps with one of the other groomsmen. You'll have more buying power, and two heads are often better than one when it comes to gift ideas. Sometimes the entire groomsmen gang pitches in for one knock-them-off-their-feet wedding gift.
  
• At the reception, you may be introduced with the bridesmaid you escorted during the recessional. You may also be asked to dance with bridesmaids or single female guests during the evening. Wow, how easy is this?

They are useless aren't they?

Bridesmaids take notice...

I outlined what the Maid of Honor needs to be doing for me and now I will outline what the maids should be doing according The Knot.

The bridesmaid is an integral part of any wedding, on hand to comfort, console, multitask, and party hearty at all bridal event(s). Whether it's your first bridesmaid gig or your 50th, here's a cheat sheet of your to-dos.

• Offer to help with prewedding tasks. Try to be specific when you volunteer. For example, say, "Would you like me to help you shop for bridesmaid dresses/stuff invitations/pack for the honeymoon?" instead of just, "What can I do?"  

• Scout out bridesmaid dresses, shoes, jewelry, and other accessories. Pay for the entire ensemble. (Break in your shoes before the wedding day -- that will minimize slipping, blisters, and aching tootsies.)

• Help to plan, cohost, and pay for the shower and bachelorette party with other bridesmaids.

• If the maid/matron of honor isn't already handling this task, keep a record of all the gifts received at various parties and showers (so that the bride/couple can write thank-you notes); maintain RSVP lists.

• Attend the ceremony rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. (Keep abreast of all prewedding parties, and go to as many as possible.)

• Run last-minute errands. On the day of the wedding, be on hand to confirm flower delivery times, meet and greet the ceremony officiant, or satisfy junk food cravings.

• Stand in the receiving line at the bride's request.

• Serve as auxiliary hostess at the reception by introducing guests, making sure they know where the bar is located, and inviting them to sign the guest book.

• Hit the dance floor when the music kicks in. Dance with groomsmen during the formal first-dance sequence. Also, be on the lookout for toe-tapping guests who might need encouragement and/or a dance partner.

• Give the maid/matron of honor a break by helping to carry the bride's train whenever necessary. Bustle the train before dancing begins, and be ready to help fix it if it comes unhooked. Accompany the bride on visits to the restroom, if asked.

• Purchase a wedding present perhaps with one or several of the other bridesmaids. This provides more buying power, and two heads are better than one when it comes to gift ideas. Sometimes the entire bridesmaid troupe pitches in for one knock-her-socks-off wedding gift.

• Be a trooper, no matter how stressful the ordeal becomes. Try not to complain about the bridesmaid dress -- even if the color is horrendous. Be gracious and tactful.

• Provide plenty of emotional support during the planning and on the wedding day.
  

Heartache/Sales Leave

Japan is so kooky. A company has instituted "heartache leave" that allows you to take up to three days off after a break up. They also give you paid time off to go shop the sales.

信じられないい

Read the article here.

Wedding Night in Jail?

That is how this couple spent their wedding night - in the slammer. Click here for the article. The story basically is that they were drunk and arguing at the hotel, the groom got physcial and caused $1,000 worth of damage to the Holiday Inn, broke a guy's thumb and knocked out a tooth. Let's hope this doesn't happen in Brooklyn.

Indie Bride Article

A great article about one of my favorite wedding planning sites, Indiebride.com.

Other words of advice

In our pre-cana folder, we had many other worksheets to read and think about after the weekend. One was rules for disagreements which made me think of this tv show I used to watch - TLC's "Shamlom in the Home. After going to pre-cana, I went and found the ideas that Rabbi Shmuley (the host of "Shalom in the Home") has for a good marriage and family. A lot of these resonate with me. Accordin to the Rabbi (who can be a bit harsh at times, I am not going to lie or sugar coat his ideas):

You can't be a good parent without being a good spouse.

There are two kinds of parental love: the love you give your kids, and the love you give your spouse.

Kids with loving spouses grow up believing in romantic love.

It's your kid's job to resist. It's your job to impose your will.

Good discipline is just another form of love.

Ten percent of life is what happens; the other 90 percent is what you do about it.

Many of us parent out of fear - fear of alienating our kids, fear of making the wrong choice - but fear never leads to the right destination. You cannot fix your children without also fixing yourself.

The greatest gift a man & a woman can give to their children is the gift of loving each other.

Shalom in the home, domestic tranquility, is the ultimate blessing. The man who has a woman who believes in him is impregnable and invincible. Nothing in life can hurt him because he has peace at this center.

Your marriage is not a facet of your life. It is your life. It is not a detail of your happiness, but its source and greatest blessing. Swallow your pride. Go back to the person to whom you once committed your life and exert the energy to make the marriage work again. By doing so you will have the satisfaction of knowing, not only that you never stopped climbing – that you never quit – but rather that you never climbed alone.

There is enough uncontrollable pain in life without us unnecessarily adding self-inflicted wounds.
The hero is not the man who conquers the world, but who conquers his own passions.

We dare never parent out of fear. Fear is a hysterical reaction to an imagined threat, while caution is a calculated response to a real danger.

We must raise our children to fear none but God alone.

A parent’s bedroom is not a family sitting room or family dormitory. Children should never sleep in their parents’ bedroom. If you need to hire a security guard to make your bedroom into Fort Knox, that is still better than allowing your role as parent to conflict with your role as lover to your spouse.

The rule of relationships is this: We all want to be wanted, need to be needed, desire to be desired. Demonstrating a dependency on the object of your love is the golden rule of relationships.

Man is a force of nature, like a hurricane, whose turbulence is on the extremities but has utter calm at its center. We are powerful when we have shalom, tranquility, in the home, when the place to which we retreat is tranquil. Then, none of the external noise pierces our soul. For many families today, however, they have tumultuous winds in the home, forcing them to flee to mind-numbing escapes on the extremities, outside the home.

It’s not true that a couple’s sex life need end with the advent of children. On the contrary, what is lovemaking other than a man and woman at play, flirtatious and precocious. And the natural playfulness that children inject into the lives of their parents can help them to draw closer.

The greatest gift that a man can give his children is to love their mother. Conversely, the greatest gift that a mother can give her children is to love their father.

By being happily married we gift to our children the knowledge that love works, that the world is comprised of pieces of a puzzle that ultimately fit.

The man who cheats on his wife thinks of himself as an adventurer, when really he is a wanderer.

We dare not make money into a commodity by which to purchase self-esteem.

The foremost sin in a marriage is to put someone (even your child) before each other.

The real purpose of counseling a family is not to point out right and wrong, but to inspire them to choose the right and reject the wrong.

The Garden of Eden was not a place in space, but a place in time. It represents our childhood years, when everything is magical and perfect. Eviction from Eden represents growing up, the natural tendency to be bitten by the hardships and disappointments of life, to calcify and coarsen. The restoration to Eden takes place when we have children, who reintroduce all the lost Eden-like qualities of childhood into our lives.

Parents today are guilty of believing that they can have healthy children without having a healthy family environment.

Most of us promise ourselves that we will never make the same mistakes as our parents, yet we grow up and almost by osmosis, we start becoming them. We end up transmitting to our children the same imperfections that our parents transmitted to us. It’s a never-ending cycle. And there comes a time in the generational life of a family that one generation has to say, "Enough, I will be healed so that my children will heal." Let that generation be us.

You cannot have healthy children without having a healthy family environment.

There are no bad children. Only bad parents. When our kids act up, it’s time to look in the mirror.

Parents need their children far more than children need their parents.

You are not a hero to the world unless you are first and foremost a hero to your children.

Have you really been successful if the people who mean the most to you, think the least of you?

Survey Says...

I received an email about a poll that the Knot did recently on the cost of weddings. And being that I work in market research (albeit for a tech company but still) I was interested. The press release can be read below.

The Knot Inc. (NASDAQ: KNOT), the owners of The Knot Wedding Network (which includes the Internet’s most-trafficked wedding websites and communities TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com,) conducted a massive survey in 2007 to capture detailed feedback on wedding spending, style preferences, event characteristics, and other key information related to the bridal demographic.

The survey, administered by Harris Interactive, is the second annual Real Weddings Survey conducted by The Knot Inc. It polled nearly 22,000 individuals—of mixed ethnicities, income, and education levels—across 50 US states, making it the largest survey of its kind ever.

WEDDING SPENDING:,COUPLES ALLOT BULK OF BUDGET TO RECEPTION, AND COUPLES CONTRIBUTE AS MUCH AS BRIDE’S PARENTS, AND CAKE SPENDING INCREASES SIGNIFICANTLY

$27,882 is the average wedding budget in the US (not including the honeymoon). Including the honeymoon, the average wedding budget in the US is $32,660.

The bulk of the average wedding budget is dedicated to the reception venue ($12,722, or 45%); followed by the reception band ($4,105 on average, or 15%); and photographer ($2,651 on average, or 9.5% of the total average wedding budget).

In 2007 vs. 2006, couples spent 35% more on their wedding cake (average $692 vs. $514), 17% more on their reception venue (average $12,722 vs. $10,857), and 18% more on their reception band ($4,105 vs. $3,465).

The bride’s parents (44%) and the bride and groom (43%) are paying for the majority of weddings.

The average cost of a wedding gown is $1,317 (NYC brides spent the most at $2,206).

The average cost of a wedding photographer is $2,651 (Long Island brides spend the most on photography at $4,550).

WEDDING STYLE & TRENDS: SEMIFORMAL WEDDINGS ARE THE RAGE, AND BRIDES ARE HEADING TO ALTAR FASTER

The average wedding guest list is 153 people, nearly the same as 2006. (Wisconsin brides have the largest weddings, averaging 189 invitees).

Brides are not prolonging their engagements; the average wedding-planning period is 11 months. New York brides are engaged the longest (13.1 months), while Las Vegas brides have the shortest engagements (9.1 months).

Weddings are getting less formal: Weddings are split in terms of formality: 66% were characterized as “semi-formal” as compared to 45% in 2006 and 20% are characterized as “formal/black tie, down from 42% in 2006.”

The average bridal party in 2007 was comprised of 4 bridesmaids and 4 groomsmen.
The groom is significantly involved in planning: 36% of grooms were ‘very involved’ and 57% of grooms were ‘somewhat involved’

Reception venues of choice in 2007 were reception halls (29%), hotel (19%), club (yacht, country, etc.) (16%), restaurants (9%), historic mansions (7%), with the remaining 20% going to parks and gardens, museums and cultural centers, private homes, loft and raw spaces, and other reception venues.

The most important reception venue features were: a great space for dancing (81%), a picturesque backdrop for photos (65%), an outdoor area for cocktails (52%), a breathtaking view (39%), and a waterside location (25%).

DESTINATION WEDDINGS: COUPLES ARE TRAVELING TO TIE THE KNOT, BUT NOT NECESSARILY LEAVING THE COUNTRY

Destination weddings are more popular: With a destination wedding characterized as “200 or more miles away from where the bride and groom live (including non US locations)” and “at least 80% of guests requiring overnight accommodations” approximately 1 in 10 couples have a destination wedding (8-10%).

Approximately 25% of destination weddings occur outside the US.

20% of couples are traveling at least 200 miles from where they reside to get married.

PHOTOGRAPHY: PHOTOGRAPHY GOES DIGITAL AND COSTS GO UP

Couples spent 8% more on their photographers in 2007 vs. 2006 ($2,651 vs. $2,466).

A mix of traditional and photojournalistic photography is what most (71%) couples desire, while 18% chose to place emphasis on candid photos.

There was a 61% increase in use of digital-only photography at weddings.

MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT

Top reception band and music style choices in 2007 were rock-and-roll/Motown (37%) and big band/swing/jazz (21%).

It is interesting to see where I am more or less than the average. Also, interesting that they pull out NYC at times.

America's Most Sinful Cities

Forbes.com had a very interesting interactive map that highlights the most sinful cities in terms of the seven deadly sins (greed, gluttony, wrath, jealousy, lust, sloth, pride).

Click here for the article.