MR does wedding planning

Marginal Revolution ventures into wedding planning. Read the comments, some of which hint at some very funny stories.

Some thoughts of my own:

1. If your prospective partner is really, really into the surface aspects of the wedding and into counting the $$ spent as a measure of your affection, think carefully about marrying the person. One of the things I most value about my wife is how little she cares about this sort of thing.

2. I actually much prefer the video we had done to the photographs. The video is particularly nice for people who could not come to the wedding but really wanted to, and there will always be some of those. I'd spend on a good videographer and be sure to have them walk around talking to the guests.

3. Our reception was "dry" but at a hotel with a bar. My economist friends sorted the solution out pretty quickly.

4. If you are older and well-established when you get married, I suggest skipping the gifts altogether. We did, and asked people to give us their "words of wisdom" instead. This worked really, really well. Periodically we will go back and dive into the box of words of wisdom and re-read some of them. It always makes for a fun, informative and romantic time. Plus a few folks did their "words of wisdom" live at the reception. Both the economists and the relatives proved remarkably entertaining. My favorite line was from my cousin, who suggested imagining your partner naked when having an argument.